in dallas. then the bipartisan >> i went in, i walked into the neyle kiosk, i said i'm bob her to report. gardcame up as we walked down of youraid i knew one campaign managers in ohio. i said, ok. in there, the guard said, here, you have some hate mail -- it was from california and massachusetts -- they give mail.e you go through the strip-down and then i got into the intake, walked into prison, down into the courtyard. i won't use the same language i use in the warden told the man, get away from him, he can sitting own way and i'm

there, not knowing where i'm going, what dloghts get, in clothes, like pajama pants and another prisoner said your escort? and i said, i don't know, some little guy in a suit yelled foul language. he took me in the back way of in andndry room, i walk a man is sitting there and he said, are you the congressman? i said, used to be. he said, are you a republican, aren't you? >> i said, republicans put me in here. he said, i was the mayor of east cleveland, welcome, i'll get you clothes. sunday onth bob ney q&a.n's [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] this is a little less than an hour and a half.

morning, ladies and gentlemen. please direct your attention to angela turner as wilson purchases "god bless america." ♪ god bless america land that i love stand beside her and guide her

thru the night with a light from above from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam god bless america my home sweet home ♪ americas my home sweet home ♪ god bless america land that i love stand beside her

and guide her thru the night with a light from above from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam god bless america homeme sweet god bless america my home sweet home ♪ [cheers and applause]

>> please welcome the chairman foundationge w. bush board of directors, donald l. evans. [applause] >> good morning and welcome to the george w. bush presidential center and to the beautiful campus of southern methodist dallas, texas. i'm proud to be here with all of dedicatetoday as we this beautiful building to the american people. two years ago, we broke ground on this site and the hard work many people is realized in

the building behind me today. done more no one has to make this place possible than andident george w. bush mrs. laura bush. [applause] of callinge honor them my friends for more than 40 and i've been privileged to witness firsthand the instead principled leadership of president bush. those who come here will learn leadership and about consequential time in american history. researchers and scholars will presidential records housed in the archives. students and museum visitors modernarn about the american presidency, first decade of the 21st century, and the story of george and laura bush. on the other side of this is the george w. bush

institute. here, thinkers and doers are advance freedom and defend the principles that mrs. bushsident and throughout their lives and through their service to texas, america and the world. today is the day to celebrate president and mrs. bush for their commitment to this honor the american presidency and to look forward this mostact important civic institution will leave on the lives of people in country and around the world. we are honored that you have joined us today. welcome. [applause]

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the 46th vice president of the states, richard cheney. [applause]

johnson. b. mrs. linda j. robb. nixon cox.a .r. michael reagan

♪

ladies and gentlemen, first lady of the united states, mrs. michelle obama, mrs. laura mrs. hillary rodham bush,n, mrs. barbara carter.lyn

♪ gentlemen, the president of the united states,

obama, president george w. bush, president bill clinton, president george h.w. .ush, president jimmy carter ♪ ♪

applause]d please remain standing for the reverend markthe craig followed by the colors.tion of us pray. today, oh,hered here god, to offer thanks for the life and the legacy of president mrs. george w. bush. theirnk you for distinguished leadership to our nation. grateful forare their moral courage and commitment to public service. god, our lord, creator and

sustainer, today we honor a man genuinely believes in your quest of freedom for all. ask that president bush and his family continue to feel the prayers and support of people all over the world who recognize his past and continued work for the expansion of freedom. upon theur blessings george w. bush presidential center and all who will walk through these doors. we pray that it will serve as a beacon of hope and freedom the world. we pray that it will remind each of ourry one of us nation's heroic past and generate noble insights for of our country. will that each of us today rededicate our lives to the values of this great institution as we continue to learn the lessons of history, help us to live out the words of the micah, "to do justice,

to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our god," we pray thy name,things in amen. >> amen, thank you, mark. you.ank ♪

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the allegiance led by first lieutenant melissa stockwell, united states army. >> i pledge allegiance to the states of america and to the republic for which it god,s, one nation, under indivisible with liberty and all.ce for >> please be seated.

ladies and gentlemen, the chair of the george w. bush institute advisory board, dr. condoleeza rice. [applause] >> good morning. mr. president and mrs. obama, and mrs. carter, president and mrs. george h.w. president and mrs. clinton and president and mrs. bush, i of introducing a number of global leaders, stateal leaders and texas leaders who have come to join us on this momentous occasion. called, may is ask you to stand and may i ask the audience to hold your so we can acknowledge our global leaders together.

president of the republic of georgia, former president of spain, president aknar, the ghana, johndent of kufor, the former president of korea, le man bok, and mrs. kim. former president of el salvador, former prime minister silvio berlusconi of italy. minister tony blair themrs. sharee blair of united kingdom. former prime minister and of australia,rd former prime minister and mrs. ehud olmert of israel,

former secretary general -- current secretary general of nato, mr. fogg rasmussen. of saudi highness arabia, abdul al-khalifa of bahrain, former ambassador to states, ambassador india. current ambassador to the united of kuwait,assador of indonesia, hakeemy andmid, mrs. hakeemy of afghanistan, of botswana, the german chief admission, mr. hannafeld, please join me in welcoming ourand

global leaders. [applause] i would now like to acknowledge the governor of texas, rick perry. [applause] jangovernor of arizona, brewer. [applause] governor of new jersey, mrs. marystie and christie. of alabama,overnor bob riley, and the former johnnor of michigan, anglers and his wife, michelle. i want to greet the following senatorof congress -- of cruz and his wife, heidi, texas, senator john cornyn of

bill, former senator baileyformer senator kay hutchinson, the speaker of the house, congressman john boehner debby. wife, kinsarling.jeff granger,oman kay congressman michael burgess, congressman pete sessions, conaway,an mike congressman kenny martin, congressman john mica, and now, electedexas representatives, lieutenant david duhearst, speaker of the texas house of joe strauss,es,

the mayor of dallas, michael of highlande mayor park, joel williams, the mayor of university park, richard and the former mayor of lepperd.om i want to thank you for being here for this wonderful occasion and i would like those in the audience to once again acknowledge the presence of our global, national and local leaders. thank you very much. [applause]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] the chairmancome of the george w. bush foundation directors, donald l. by theccompanied

archivist of the united states, fairio. >> i'm pleased to be joined by honorable david fairio, archivist of the united states. on behalf of the george w. bush foundation, it is my honor to present to you and to the people the key to the george w. bush presidential library and museum. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, mrs. laura bush. [cheers and applause] >> welcome, everyone.

welcome to all of our friends and family who've joined us today. be seated. welcome to all of our friends and family who've joined us from around the country and around the world. thank you all for coming. and a special welcome to president obama and michelle, to clinton and secretary clinton, to president carter and rosalynn and finally, we're andlled to have our father mother, president george h.w. bush and barbara bush. [cheers and applause] know for the presidential families that nothing says an get-together more than an invitation to come and see fromons of documents someone else's time in office so thank you all very much for

coming. a warm welcome to the former heads of state who have joined us, the diplomatic corps, the members of the united states our armed forces, and we're especially happy to of soe familiar faces many of the bush-cheney administration. the united states, the presidency is not just about one person. is about all of the people that join with that of service toears our remarkable nation. fly're the people who never on air force one but who put in nights andate earlier mornings, who spend less and with their family friends and more time hard at work caring for our country. presidency is about the men and women of our military who every president and who make the ultimate sacrifice to protect us and keep us safe.

the stones in the walls behind us represent your years of service. this building is here because of and forhat, george and i thank you from the bottom of our hearts. [applause] a presidential library is not about one president. each library is about our nation during that time. the george w. bush presidential center reflects george's role as the first president of the 21st century. like our new era, the building and its grounds are designed to forward-looking and they're green and sustainable. the nativeate environment of our home state of texas. here areves housed completely digital and the entire bush center is designed to present the past and engage

the future. welcome scholars and students and the community at large to for generations to come. the center is designed to be in scale because, like the white house, presidential to alles belong americans. the people across our nation the ones who inspired us every day. heartbreakember the we remember the heroism of september 11 and the bravery of those who answered the call to defend our country. walks of lifel came to the gulf coast following hurricane katrina. we remember all people who stepped forward to help others.

reminded of my husband. georgeber the image of standing in the rubble of the world trade center, his arm around the shoulders of retired firefighter who had grabbed his old year to search for the missing. for the missing. i remember at peeky stadium preparing to throw out the first pitch for the world series during the long season of heartbreak. i remember his quiet visit with families of the fallen, sharing their stories and their tears, and i remember how steadfast he was for eight years. since we have been home, i have added new memories. i see george bush was brush to paint in the african nation of

zambia. i see him last may on a bike ride with wounded veterans when he hopped off his own by to help push a major stumbling with only one leg up a steep hill. who when is a man someone needs a hand offers his arm. this is captured in this building, but this will always be a place that welcomes each visitor with open arms. thank you, and welcome. [applause]

[dmroll] ♪ ]america the beautiful plays

america ♪ shining sea ♪

for patriot dream ♪ ♪that sees beyond the years cities gleam ♪er ♪ undimmed by human tears ♪america! america! grace on thee ♪ ♪ and crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ sea to shining sea ♪ america! america! ♪

♪ america ♪ [applause] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, president jimmy carter. [applause] great honor for me to be here today. it reminds me of my favorite cartoon in new yorker magazine. this little boy is looking at his father, and he says, when i grow up, i want to be a former

president. beis a wonderful thing to with the other presidents and to have a chance to redress this wonderful audience. i will be there in an -- i will be very brief, and i will limit this personally to the things said have been important to me a. in 2007 there was a disputed election for several weeks. when president bush became president, they had in inauguration in washington on schedule, and i think my wife and i were the only two volunteered democrats on the platform. george came up and thank us for ising, and he said, if there anything i can ever do, let me know, which is a mistake. they are in 35 countries, and the worst part is a war going on

between north and south sudans. millions of people have been killed, and i would like you to help us have a peace agreement. a week following, he said i will do it. about the secretary of state and security adviser? he said, i have not chosen it. distinguishedre senator from missouri and a great and generals from kenya. of 2005 there is a peace treaty between north and south sudan -- january of 2005 there was a peace treaty between north and south sudan that ended a war. george bush was responsible for that. [applause] that was the first of his great contributions to the countries in africa.

mentioned,ady been he increased the development of assistance from $1.4 billion to more than $9 billion, and that is an increase of 640%. of its development assistance. program.ished a there were hiv it sufferers being treated when he came into office. when the left, 2 million. i will let you figure the percentage on that. he has a program called pink ribbon and red ribbon. these are the women with cervical or breast cancer in sub-saharan african. that is dear to my heart and to millions of people in africa. let me say i am filled with admiration and deep gratitude of the great contributions you have made to the most needy people on earth.

very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, president george h. w. bush. [applause] >> thank you all very much. what a beautiful day in dallas. it is a great pleasure to be here. to honor our oldest son, and it is very special for barbara and me, and thank you all for coming and to those who made this marvelous museum possible. we thank you, and we are glad to be here.

god bless america, and thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, president bill clinton. >> thank you very much, and

residents and mrs. bush. ,ed president and mrs.bama president and mrs. carter. all the representatives of the other previous presidents, ford and nixon and johnson families. i told president obama this was example of grandest the eternal struggle of former presidents to rewrite history. i want to take my hat off to president bush. this is a beautiful library. the exhibits are great. the bush institute is inspiring, and i congratulate him on the library. i think this is the second

building in the entire federal system that has this system. i have to say, once again you got the better of me twice in the last few weeks. my library has a platinum rating, but it was open for a few years before we could afford to achieve it, and you beat me to be a grandfather, and i congratulate you and laura for it. nine [applause] starting with my work with president george h. w. bush on the tsunami and the aftermath of katrina, people began to joker was getting so close to the bush family i had become the black sheep son. my mother told me not to talk barbara, iday, and

will not let you down. there is one other connection i have which is largely unknown, which is that a couple times a year in his second term, george bush would call me just to talk politics, and a chill wind up and down my spine when laura said all their records were digitized. dear god, i hope there is no record of those conversations in this vast and beautiful building. [laughter] i want to say, as president carter said, i was impressed president bush invites us to make different decisions if we choose on the decisions he was facing. one of the most interesting things about this library, i

want to talk about a couple other things beyond controversy. first, i want to thank president .ush for passing this no president in my party could through congress, and i work all throughout africa with our health initiatives and aides and malaria, and i have personally seen the faces of some of the millions of people who are alive today because of its. [applause] i want to thank president obama for continuing it and increasing it. i want to thank you and laura for continuing your work in global health. i want to thank you for your reform our immigration system and keep america on a nation of immigrants, and i hope the congress will follow president

obama's efforts to follow the example you set, and i thank you for that. i want to thank you for the work the poresr haiti, country in our hemisphere. we have closed our fund. , andlped a lot of people we gave the first home mortgage system. you for that. i probably should not say this, but i am going to carry did your mother showed me some of your landscapes and animal paintings, and i thought they were great. considered calling year-end asking you to do a portrait of me until i saw the results of your sister's hack e-

mails. should keep my seat. i like president bush. we do a lot of speeches together. direct.sarmingly we were having an argument, and i went on about the german health care system, and he said, i do not know a thing about the german health care system, and i think he won the argument. we are here to celebrate a country we love, a service we all rendered. it is an important part of every free society, in asking us to join him in the decisions he made and inviting us to do different ones if we choose, he

has honored the deepest tradition and for all of these things as an american citiz. i am very grateful. [applause] gentlemen, the president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you so much. please be seated. and mrs. bush, president clinton and mrs. clinton, president and mrs. carter, current and world

leaders and all the distinguished guests today, michelle and i are honored to be with you to mark this historic occasion. this is a texas-sized party, and that is worthy of what we are here to do today, to honor the life and legacy of the 43rd president of the united states, george w. bush. when all the living former presidents are together, it is also a special day for our democracy. we have been called the world's most exclusive club, and we do have a pretty nice clubhouse, but the truth is our club is more like a support group. the last time we all got together was just before i took office, and i needed that, because as each of these leaders will tell you, no matter how much you think you are ready to assume the office of the president, it is impossible to truly understand the nature of

it until it is yours, until you are sitting at that desk. as well as every president gains a greater appreciation for all those who served before them. partiesleaders of both who have taken on enormous challenges and put the weight of the nation on their shoulders, and for me that appreciation extends to president bush. thatirst thing i found in as the day i took office was a letter from georgia and one that whonstrated his capacity -- demonstrated his generosity. he knew i would come to learn what he had learned, that being president is a humbling job. there are moments when you make mistakes. there are times when you wish you could turn back the clock, and what i know is true about president bush and i hope my successor will say about me it

is that we love this cntry, and we do our best. past president bush has said it is impossible to pass judgment on his presidency while he is still alive, so maybe this is premature, but even now there are certain things we know for certain. we know the sun was raised by two strong, loving parents in midland, famously inheriting, as he says, my daddy's eyes and my mother's mouth. homeoung boy who once came after a trip to a museum and probably presented his horrified mother with a small dinosaur tailbone he smuggled home in his pocket. i bet that went over great with barbara. we know about the young man who met the love of his life at a dinner party, ditching his plans to go to bed early, and instead talking with a brilliant and charming laura welch late into

the night. we know about a father who raise two remarkable, caring, beautiful daughters. even after they tried to discourage him from running for president, saying, you are not as cool as you think you are. president, i can relate. now we see president bush to grandfather just beginning to spoil his brand new granddaughter, so we know president bush the man, and what president clinton said is absolutely true. to know the man is to like the man. owns comfortable in his skin. he knows who he is. he does not put on pretenses. if he takes his job seriously, but he does not take himself too seriously. he is a good man, but we also know something about george bush the leader. as we walk through this library,

we are reminded of the incredible strength and resolve that came through done bullhorn as he stood amid the rubble and ruins of ground zero, promising to deliver justice to those who sought to destroy our way of life. we remember the compassion he showed by leading the global fight against hiv aids and malaria, helping to save millions of life and reminding people of some of the poorest corners of the globe that america cares and that we are here to help. we remember his commitment to reaching across the aisle to unlikely allies like ted kennedy, because he believed we have to reform our schools in ways that help every child learn, not just some. we have to repair a broken immigration system, and this progress is only possible when we do it together.

seven years ago president bush restarted an important conversation by speaking with the american people about our history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigs, e though comprehensive immigration reform has taken longer than any of us expected, i am hopeful this year with the help of speaker boehner and some of the senators and members of congress who are here today that we bring it home for our families and economy and security and for is incredible country we love, and if we do that, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of president george w. bush. [applause] finally, a president there is no greater decision and no more solemn burden than serving as commander in chief for the greatest military the world has

known. president bush hd mu and keep its word to the men and women who have given us so much. we may disagree on matters of foreign policy, but we share a profound respect and reverence for the men and women of our military and families, and we are united in our determination to comfort the families of the fallen and to care for those who wear the uniform of the united states. [applause] at the height of the cold war, of president kennedy's secretary found a small slip of paper on which the president had written a favorite saying. i know there is a god, and see a storm coming. if he has a place for me, i

believe i am ready. can be completely ready for this office, but america needs leaders willing to face the storm had gone, even as they pray for god strength and wisdom so they can do what they believe is right. that is what the leaders with whom i share this stage have all done. that is what president george h. w. bush chose to do. that is why i am honored to be part of today's celebration. service,dent, for your for your courage, for your sense of humor, and for your love of country, thank you very much. you, and god bless the united states. [applause]

♪ ♪ >> ♪ mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord ♪ is truth is marching on ♪

♪ glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ion ♪truth is marching

♪ they have builded him an alter ♪ the evening dews and damps ♪ i can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ♪ ♪ his day is marching on hallelujah ♪ry, ♪ glory, glory, hallelujah on ♪ truth is marching ♪

♪ ♪ christ was born. with our glory in his glory.

as he died who made man holy let us die to make man great. , hallelujah. glory, glory hallelujah. glory, glory, hallelujah. our god is marching on. glory, glory, hallelujah. glory, glory, hallelujah. glory, glory hallelujah. our god is marching on.

♪ ♪ [applause] >> i believe one develops a set of principles through face. at how -- through faith. how you were raised. i had a sent of principles. become -- by the time i became president, i was willing to defend those principles. i wanted to make sure the economy was strong. we needed to ulster on military in order to maintain the peace. it was important to promote a culture in which each individual is responsible for his or her

decisions. we could improve our public school system so people had a chance of the american dream. the free enterprise sent them -- the system needed to be protected. i never wanted to be a wartime president. .ore came to our shores on 9/11 i had a lot of emotions. mostly i was determined. determined to protect america. any commander and chief ought to create a bond with the military. the toughest decision is to send men and women into harm's way. >> of course one of the things i'm interested in him is -- one of the things i'm interested in is literacy. one of them was women's rights. when i made the presidential radio address talking about the bureau -- brutal treatment of

women by the taliban, i started getting responses from women everywhere across our country. wasur guiding principles to whom much is given, what much is required. i believe we have an obligation to have -- help human suffering where we possibly can. life is service until the end. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, president george w. bush. [applause] >> thank you, please be seated. area that i want to thank you all for coming. laura and i are thrilled to

have so manyrids. a lot of friends. when was a ti life i one -- it wasn't likely to be found at a library, much less found one. the beautiful building has my name above the door, but it belongs to you. andonors a cause we serve the country we share. for eight years, you gave me the honor of serving as your president. today i am proud to dedicate to this entered to the american people. [applause] i am very grateful the -- to president obama for making this trip. [applause] unlike the other presidents, he has actually got a job. president, thank you for your

kind words and for leading the nation we all love. [applause] i appreciate my fellow members of the former presidents club. 41, and 39. i want to thank you for your kind words and the example you set. hama toll once worried about ex-presidents wondering among the people like discontented ghosts. i think we seem pretty happy. one reason is that we have wonderful first lady's at our side. first ladies at our side. mother laura, you know how i feel. world leaders with whom i've had the pleasure to serve, you are good friends and i am

honored to have you here in the promised land. i want to make -- welcome the members of congress. i know you all will be happy to lot that this speech is a shorter than the state of the union. , and state governor's and local officials who have joined us. i welcome them resume cabinet, especially vice president dick cheney. [applause] asked him to run with me, he served with loyalty, principal, and strength. i'm proud to call you friend. [applause] history is going to show that i served with great people. at talented, dedicated, intelligent team of men and

women who love our nation as much as i do. i want to thank the people who have made this project a success. president gerald turner runs a fantastic university. [applause] with active trustees, dedicated faculty, and a student body that is also in -- that is awesome. [laughter] thent to thank professionals at the national archives and records administration who have taken on a major task. i am confident you will all handle it. , appreciate the architects landscapers, and designers and thely come a -- spsignersy.

as will of all the workers who build a feinman facility that will stand the test of time. t think the fantastic team the ge w. bush a center. the delight of the folks who work on this project, we have raised enough money to pay our bills. [applause] we have over 300,000 contributors from all 50 states, and laura and i thank you from the bottom of our hearts. [applause] this is the first time in the american history that parents have senior -- have seen their son's presidential library at

parma stickley -- presidential library. i promise to keep mine clean. dad taught me how to be a president. he show me how to be a man. 41, it is also the you are here today. you are hereome today. [applause] i welcome my dear brothers and and laws, well as laws, cousins, nieces, all of you for joining us. our family has meant more to me than anything. i thank you for making it so. not so long ago, this campus was home to the beautiful west texan named laura welch. when she earned her degree in library science, i'm not sure this day is exactly what she had in mind.

she has been a source of rend support ever since we met in the backyard in midland, texas. one of the joins of the -- the joys of the presidency was firstng laura serve as lady. the american people rightly love for braid so do why. -- the american people rightly love her. so do i. she will be an excellent grandmother. it was a joy. that herly happy mother and father, jenna and henry, could make it here today. inc. you well for coming. -- thank you all for coming. jen is a correspondent.

continuing the warm relations the bush family has with the press. [applause] major milestone in a journey that began 20 years ago when i announced my campaign for governor of texas. some of you were there that day. a lot of you were there that day. i picture you looking a little younger. you probably picture me as a little less gray hair. in politics, you learn who your real friends are. our friends have stood with us every step of the way. today is the day to give you a proper thanks. democracy, the purpose of public office, is not to the fill personal ambition. elected officials must serve a cause greater than themselves

to read the political winds blow left and right. polls rise and fall. supporters come and go. but in the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold. , theepest conviction guiding principle of the administration, is that the united states of america must strive to expand the reach of freedom. [applause] that freedom is a gift from god. one.hope of every secured the promise of civil rights. freedom sustained dissonance bound by chains. voters who risk their lives to cast their ballots.

,reedom unleashes creativity rewards innovation, and replaces poverty with prosperity. atimately, freedom lights path to peace. freedom brings responsibility. independent from the state does not mean isolation from each other. a free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors, and the strong protect the weak, and public policy promotes private compassion. i try to act on these principles every day. it was not always easy, and it was not always popular. one of the benefits of freedom is that people can disagree. i created plenty of opportunities to exercise that right. when future generations come to this library and study this administration, they're going to find out that we stay true to our convictions.

the we expanded freedom at home by raising standards in schools and lowering taxes for everybody. [applause] that we liberated nations from dictatorship and free people from aids. when our freedom came under attack, we made the tough decisions required to keep the american people safe. the same principles define the mission of the presidential center. i am are tired -- i am retired from politics, happily so. not from public service. we will use our influence to help more children start life with the quality education, to the americans find jobs, but more countries overcome poverty and disease, to appeal -- to help people live in freedom. we will work to empower women

around the world to transfer him the countries -- to transform their country. to stimulate find the women and men who defend our flag him and our freedoms here at home. ultimately the success of a nation depends on the character of its citizens. as president, i had the privilege to see that up) i saw in the first responders who charge up the stairs into the flames to save peoples's lives from burning towers. i saw it in the virginia tech professor who barricaded his classroom with his body until the students escape to safety. i saw it in the people in new orleans who may boast to rescue their neighbors from floods. servicemembers whos keep our nation safe. franklin roosevelt described the

dedication of a library as an act of faith. i dedicate this as an unshakable faith in our country. brave and is no was the united states. what ever challenges come before us, i will always believe our nation is best -- our nations best days lie ahead. [applause] god bless. [applause]

>> please stand for the national anthem. [no audio] ♪ oh say can you see, by the dawns early light whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous night for the ramparts we watched were

so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air ave proof through the night that our flag was still there o say does that star-spangled banner yet wave 'er the land of the free nd the home of the brave ♪ [applause]

>> united states navy will deliver the benediction. >> may we pray together. gracious god, today we acknowledge you worked in the affairs of humankind and nations. our prayer is that we as a people will listen carefully, respond appropriately, and live each day acutely aware of the need for your guidance. you grace us with men and women who lead, prompted by the power of personal conviction, to help shape our national conscience, and provide examples of extraordinary leadership. today we gather to celebrate a

marvelous occasion, establishing in this physical place a living reflection on our national history. president bush and his presidential library establish his legacy, not only of stone and mortar, but apart and soul. and servers are minors that there are words that resonate in our national consciousness. words like justice, freedom, .iberty, opportunity, sacrifice ideals not merely of our own making, but of your creation, as you implied in each of your children these intrinsic values. grant this day that the george w. bush residential center will forever help inform our national dialogue for good, and will always remind us that our nation and world's best hope for an incurably optimistic future requires nothing less than our

very best human effort, yet ultimately rests in your prominent -- providential care. big knowledge that the spirit of freedom and opportunity we celebrate today is often in need of village want -- vigilant care parade we room are those -- the joint care. vigilant care. we give thanks for all those present today who have in the past provided faithful national said -- stewardship, and grant our leaders today, as ashley present obama, the gift of wisdom and the encouragement of your care. and out president bush, mrs. bush, and their family with your blessings, and our eternal ourwill, and mayb you bless

nation and your entire creation. amen. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming today. this concludes our program. [applause] ♪ >> senators john mccain on the bipartisan immigration bill. in an hour, more by immigration .egislation from bob goodlatte

after that, house democratic leader nancy pelosi's weekly briefing. all by a group of house recouraging thon and theaao resess employee furloughs that are affecting air travel. fda commissioner margaret amber testifies -- margaret hamburg testifies. it includes $200 million for food safety. like coverage is on c-span3. -- live coverage is on c-span3. >> before the correspondents dinner, we will show selected dinners from the past three administrations. then our live coverage of this year's dinner. sunday, the dedication to the george w. bush presidential library museum. >> i dedicate this library with

an unshakable faith in the future of our country. it is the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave, and as noble as the united states. whatever challenges come before us, i will always believe our nation's best days lie be ahead -- lie ahead. donovan campbell on leading a plenum -- a marine platoon. senators john mccain and chuck schumer on the immigration policy referred to as the gang of eight. the arizona republican and your reporat spoke with

of the christian science monitor for less than hour. >> ok. i will be very brief. i'll make a couple of points. first, on immigration bill, the number 11 reason we are here, i want to salute john mccain who was an amazing job of leadership. it would not happen without him. he said up to the plate early on. just one more point, not related to immigration. harry reid had this idea of having a joint caucus where john would happen -- john would tell what happens to him during the vietnam war. it is next. i have never forget. his courage, his valor, his everyty, just impressed member of the senate who was there. it was one amazing experience.

it was honored to be with him him. i immigration, i think those of you who have a little ounce of cynicism running in their -- i know itwould is not all of you, optimistic and looking forward to the future, but you would have been impressed by our meetings, our 24 meetings. a people of different viewpoints, of different states, of different needs, all trying to reach common ground to come together in the middle. it was an amazing thing to me. it gives you a lot of faith both in our bill, which i think is a very -- there are many words to describe it. one word i think is balance. there are such balance in it, it is not that hard to answer. it is a fine product i think. i am optimistic it will pass. i will not get into the details . i'm sure you ask about it.

there is a lot of talk now of how to -- how was boston going to affect our bill. our bill would have strengthened security because we require the machine reading of any past -- any person who leaves the country or comes back into the country. -- his name was on a customs watchlist. there was a pain when he left the country. that was a customs thing. but, even though he was on the list, the anti-terrorism list, that did not show up because his name was misspelled. under our bill, the name would have been machine read by a passport or something else, and they would not known -- and they would have known. it might have made a difference. strengthenur bills

security. shouldnt in boston afford us to leave the status quo. we are interested in any new facts that come up. those who say, let's wait on the bill because we have to see everything that happened in boston, and cl of that -- and it's an excuse. the only people who are saying against they are against the bill were against it before the boston bombings. >> i would like to thank chuck for the leadership he has displayed in getting together different views, even within the group, and different priorities, and chuck and i worked on the attempt to avert a 51-vote vote in the senate, because of the dissatisfaction that is understandable on the part of harry reid, and we have worked

on other issues together, and i appreciate the opportunity to be associated with him since the american people are very interested in seeing some results from the congress of the united states. i am sure you saw a poll about favorability of different aspects of our lives, and members of congress right below a colonoscopy. we would like to be above a colonoscopy. to comment a second on what chuck said about the tragedy in boston should somehow impede the progress of this bill -- we are having hearings, we will have a markup in the judiciary committee, and then move to the floor where there will be weeks i hope not too many weeks -- of debate, amendments, and we will have ample opportunity if there are lessons to be learned about

the boston tragedy to incorporate into legislation. this is not the final product. on the issue of the final product, we have agreed that if we feel that the bill can be improved by various amendments, we will support those amendments or feel free to support or oppose. if it is an amendment that is designed to kill the bill, as happened in 2007, we will probably vote together to prevent the bill from going down, because these are fragile compromises that have been made. let me again -- and i will stop with this -- we think that america will be much more secure with the passage of this bill. we will have a more secure border. we will use technology such as a radar that was developed in iraq that will help us identify people as they come across.

we will have a e-verify, which will send a message sooner or later south of the border, around of world, that if you get to the united states of america, you will not have a job when you get here, because of these stiff employer sanctions in e-verify, and i would also point out that exit-entry will help us with our national security as well. at the press conference that we had the other day, i would like to conclude with this -- one of the reporters asked, what makes you optimistic now whereas in 2007 you failed? i pointed to the group of people behind us. we are a coalition that has been assembled. we did not assemble it, necessarily. from labor, business, chamber of commerce, evangelicals, the catholic church. when you look at the broad

spectrum of support that has been expressed for passage of this legislation, it is a coalition we did not have in 2007, and i believe those people are extremely active. 70% of the american people support a path to citizenship as long as the people are here legally, pay back taxes, pay a fine, learn english, and get in line behind everybody else who came to this country legally, and that is an important factor in american approval or disapproval. that is what this legislation is all about. thanks for having us. >> talking about how this is not a final bill, that the bill would have made the boston situation better, have you discovered anything so far that tells you need to make further

improvements in the bill? senator graham has an amendment requiring those who are deemed higher risk to undergo more checks. are you seeing anything as a result of boston, where you wanted add stuff to the bill that is already good? >> it is way too early. we do not have all the lessons. we're finding new information on a daily basis. i am sure that by the time this bill reaches the floor we will reach conclusions and we will include provisions like that, if we feel they are necessary, working with the administration, by the way, and some of the smart people at the fbi and the other agencies. we are completely open to amendments that would in any way prevent what happened in boston. nobody has any illusion about that.

>> about sequester and flight delays, there is a dispute about how to handle the airline delays because of the sequester. a report said some democrats want legislation that will deal with the air travel portion of the sequester. majority leader harry reid is working they have a sequester repeal. can anything be done about the air travel delays? >> yes. look, my best solution is to undo sequester and replaced it with more rational types of cuts, and that would be leader reid has an amendment which got the support on our side, not on the other side, and having said that, i noted last night jay carney, the president's spokesperson, said he would be open to a solution just for faa.

the transportation department has probably the worst lead on sequestration, because so many of their employees are not affected because they are funded in part by trust funds. in other words, the highway trust fund is not subject to sequester. it squeezes the air traffic controllers. no know that rockefeller along with senator thune was meeting yesterday with a faa to come up with a solution. i would certainly be open to it. >> have had hearings in the senate armed armed services committee and we have heard from everybody except the navy. the kinds of hearings we have, every one of our uniformed service chiefs have said it cannot defend the nation if we continue with this sequester. i'm terribly uncomfortable with the delays of faa. i think it is a terrible thing. i have been subject to it myself. we are looking at a virtual threat to our national security.

we have got our priorities upside down. i am hell-bent -- if we're going to take care of airlines in the past years, why don't we take care of our national security? the world is a more dangerous place than i have seen ever, in many respects. every one of our uniformed security chiefs say they are not going to be able to defend the nation within a year. we have got our priorities upside down. i will go along with whatever the faa thing is. it's criminal and scandalous that we are ignoring the effective sequestration on our national security, how we can believe -- if you don't believe uniformed service chiefs, that is fine.

i happen to. they are presenting graphic illustrations of the problems that they are facing. i'm glad to see all the focus on whether we have to wait in line longer, or there is flight delays. i wish to god the congress of united states would focus on the threats to our nation's security. and keeping good and qualified young and then women -- men and women who are now considering getting out because they see no future, at least a predicable future, which at least we'll them. >> one other point -- owe them. >> one other point. faa is causing problems. it causes economic loss. we have lots of other cuts. john mentions the military. i hate to see nih be cut, cancer research. i certainly agree that would be a lot better to figure out a better way to undo the whole sequester as opposed to doing it

piecemeal. i certainly would be open to an faa solution. the transportation department is under an undue amount of immediate squeeze. >> you talked about republicans, how they can appeal to hispanic voters. there is still a lot of fear i am hearing. how do you convince him that that risk is worth taking? >> i believe if we pass this legislation, it won't gain us a single hispanic vote. it will put us on a playing field where we can compete great right now we cannot compete --

compete. right now it cannot compete. all i can try to do is show my friends, particularly in states like mine and the state of texas and others, where the demographics should be convincing -- by six or eight years from now, we will have a if not a majority, near to a majority hispanic population in my state. it is a demographic certainty that if we condemn ourselves to 15%, 20%, 25% of the hispanic vote we will not win elections. i have no illusions about whether passage of this legislation will gain hispanic voters. it won't. it will put us on a playing field where we can make an argument, as i do with check everyday for smaller government chuck every day for smaller government, pro-life, pro- defense.

that is the argument i think we can make to gain hispanic support. >> i will make one other comment. i was sitting with marco rubio with two conservative leaders. one of them said, schumer, you are doing this so you can get more democratic votes. i said, the first one will be allowed to vote in 13 and a half years. if you republicans have not solved your problems with the hispanic community in 13 and a half years, you are finished. >> i called paul ryan yesterday to thank him for his outspoken support of immigration reform. >> tom? >> senator mccain, can you tell us what paul ryan told you? >> i said i think my comments are important. he agrees with what i just said. thanks for calling, and -- once

you run for president -- no, he did not say that. [laughter] >> the other day that lindsey graham said the goal is to get 70% of votes in the senate -- >> we need that, and i think it's doable. >> senator schumer? >> if we were to pass this bill with over 50 democratic votes -- normally eight or nine republican votes -- it would pass. we would get the 60. it would bode poorly for the house. but we are looking for -- what we are looking for is getting a large republican vote. we did some very interesting things.

senators hatch and rubio, feinstein and bennett were part of the section. it was a point where most agreed with our proposal. southeast did not. we knew there were a lot of republican senators from the southeast who might vote for our bill, but if their growers portray -- were very much against the bill -- their agriculture is a bit different. we worked out an accommodation. we are looking not to get 61 votes. it would be wonderful if we could get a majority on both sides.

>> follow-up on that. >> i think it's very doable. yes, sir. >> just as you discussed, getting 70 votes is important for what happens in the house, how many conversations -- could you describe if you have spoken to your colleagues in the house about if they're working on their bill. and for senator schumer, you discussed trying to curry up republican support. can you'd speak about the diversity and what happened to that? talk about what happens in the diversity in the negotiation process. >> we've had conversations with some of our colleagues in the house. i think the time to do that is probably after we finish on the floor of the senate with a completed package, so we can go

over specific voice with them. we've had several -- points with them. we've had several conversations. we've encouraged their negotiations, which in many ways are particularly given the makeup of that group, somewhat encouraging. >> on diversity visas, i was the author of it back in the 1990's. i care about it. we had strong opposition from both republican colleagues on our gang of eight as well as house republicans. diversity visas were designed to bring in immigrants from countries that could not get them through family connections. 86% of the legal immigrants who

come into the country, 84% or 86% are family related. diversity was an effort to bring in people from europe and africa, who were the majority of the ancestry of americans, but who could not get in because it was their fifth cousins who could come. it was successful for a while. now it has shifted. the majority of people who come in are from central -- certainly the plurality, the highest number is from central asia, no longer from europe or africa. given that and the opposition of our colleagues, we decided we could not continue diversity visas. the cbc cares a lot about this, the congressional black caucus. in the system we have is a point system edge lindsey graham pushed for -- which lindsey graham pushed for. it makes future legal immigration more job oriented. that is the consensus among most

of us. there is plenty of room for family there, too. the number of africans, because they have so decreased under the diversity visa, will increase. that's not to mention the number of caribbean sewall first become rpi -- caribbean's who will first become rpi's and then citizens under the bill. >> you said they will increase. why will they increase? >> in the point system, questions that are underrepresented get points -- countries that are underrepresented get points. >> [indiscernible] what reassurance can you give to parents and students and mid- level professionals that this wave of immigrants will not drive down wage? we are talking about across the full width of university education, including environmentalists and journalists.

>> we need a whole new group to come in and straighten things out. >> were talking primarily stem. >> prior -- primarily stem. people ought to be given an opportunity to remain in the united states. there are job requirements for those people. there is no doubt that they are not being filled. if the united states is going to remain the number one nation in the world, we had better be able to keep the best talent in the world.

those people are people who are attending the best universities in the world, which happened to be hours. >> a couple of things in there. unemployment level for college graduates across the board in america is about 4.5%. it is obviously not like high school graduates. it is certainly in double digits there. because of senator durbin's work, they have to be paid a significant wage, level two wage. that is going to be a deterrent to anybody who wants to bring in somebody, non-stem, college graduate, for these other professions. they have to post the job. if a qualified american is available, they have to hire him or her. we have a lot of safeguards for the non-stem people who are college graduates. >> in the house, you say that the path to citizenship, there is a nonstarter there.

i'm wondering if you think there's going to be a big problem there and if you see any other path way to getting this bill done. >> there's no way of getting this job done without giving people a path to citizenship. a lot of our friends in his panic community, when they look at what's her -- hispanic community, when they look at what's required, they're not very happy. and were talking about a $500 fee, and another one after five years, and all of the foods that --e required here, including all of the hoops that are required here, including border security, there's going to be pushed back from that side as well. a legal status is not something that someone should have to remain in unless they want to. to say that you can have a legal status but you cannot have it has to be a citizen, i just don't think it fits the fundamental principles of

fairness in our society. i know that opposition is there. i don't think it's valid. i don't think it is held even by a majority of republicans. >> it's a nonstarter. in the european countries where they have done this and people don't feel they have a chance to become part of society, there is huge discontent. we have seen that in the results of economic unrest, in terms of terrorism and things like that. the american dream is that you can become an american. you have to follow certain rules. we even say for the first time, you have to learn english. you should be able to achieve that american dream, symbolized by the beautiful lady in the harbor of the city where i live. it is fundamentally important. most americans support it. the majority of republicans supported.

>> as long as -- >> there is a path. you are in it. -- earn it. for the hispanic community, it is a nonstarter. for most democrats, it is a nonstarter. the one thing that the four of us insisted on, there has to be a path to citizenship. john and the other three said it has to be a qualified, earned approach to citizenship. they insisted that people go to the back of the line, not gain any benefit from crossing the border. we have achieved that. >> effective control of the border. >> any attempt to say in the house that you will not have a path to citizenship will be a nonstarter. it will not pass the senate. i don't think it would get a democratic vote. >> michael? >> what happens to immigrants who are on the path to citizenship if benchmarks are not met?

>> they would remain in a legal until they comply with all of the requirements -- illegal until they comply with all of the requirements. in 1986, i voted for simpson mazzoli. now we have 11 named people who are here illegally. i'm not going to stand for a third wave. that means that we not only have to have a secure border, but 40% of the people are here illegally overstayed their visas. we have to track that down.

the most important aspect is that if an employer knowingly hires a person who is here illegally, they will be penalized for doing so. we will have their ability to authenticate it through tamperproof documents. the one thing that bothers me is the demand for drugs. drugs will continue to come across our southern border as long as there is a demand for it. that is a problem that we have not even addressed. it is separate from illegal immigration. we cannot have a third wave. we owe it to the american people. the only way you do that is a combination of e-verify, exit entry, secure border, and penalties for employers who hire people that don't have the proper documentation. >> let's make a couple of points. i agree with john.

the american people will support common sense, balanced solutions to legal immigration and the 11 million who are here only fdr convinced there will not be a third wave of illegal immigration -- if they are convinced there will not be a third wave of illegal immigration. our bill is stronger than anything that has been envisioned. the border metrics are real. john took us to the border. we passed the bill, the two of us in 2010. it puts $600 million into the border. some of my constituents said, we don't need anything on the border. that $600 million raised effectiveness rates from 68% to 82%. everyone who attempts to cross they either catch or turn back, 82%. now we are spending another 4.5, and then another two if that does not work.

one thing we insisted on, that these metrics not be spaghetti. they be achievable, concrete metric listen to this. on their border in arizona they only have two drones. they can only fly them eight hours a day because they don't have the personnel. it's a vast border. it's nothing like new york. [laughter] you don't have to catch them right at the border. you have these drones like and follow people across the border. they see everything that crosses. they can follow them for 25, 30 miles inland and catch them there. the one who got in the news, the one lady we saw trying to cross the border, they did not apprehend her. this was in no balance.

-- nogales. they said, we will catch her in 20 minutes. and they did. these metrics are really going to be more effective than people think. we are going to secure the border. and they are achievable. let's say a president comes in who is anti-immigration. they cannot use the system. they cannot game the system to say we are not creating a path to citizenship. >> technology. in about a month they will be 120 degrees on the arizona- sonora border. it is very tough on people, sitting in a vehicle in that heat. we developed radars and capabilities in a rack -- in iraq that will allow us -- if deployed correctly, will allow us to surveilled the entire border. we developed a radar in iraq which not only identifies people at the time, but they track them back to where they came from.

it's a fascinating radar. i'm convinced the technology and surveillance capabilities as well as the drones will allow us to have effective control of the border, which might have been impossible 10 or 15 years ago. >> [inaudible] >> we will know in five years. if we have not met those requirements in five years, we will convene a convention and they will spend additional monies. if they do it right, i am totally confident.

also in this goal, 40% of people never came across our border. they just came on a visa and overstayed. we are a dressing that side of it, that aspect -- addressing that side of it, that aspect. >> a lot of people have questions. >> make your answers shorter. [laughter] >> [listing names] that is probably as far down the list as we are going to get. >> the u.s. chair of commerce endorsed or legislation. but the cap on visas for construction workers -- >> everyone is unhappy. but they signed up. you're going to have to show me a major group that is in opposition. of course they're unhappy. on the other side they're very

unhappy as well with the provisions of the bill. that is what compromise is called. >> next question. [laughter] >> senator schumer, would you accept a 50% increase in the number of visas, h1 -- >> this is a carefully negotiated package. i talked to tom donohue a great deal. he is from brooklyn, too. we basically said -- that's what jeff flake said. he said, the lady at the border heard my new york accent and already thought she was in new york. [laughter] anyway, basically we said, we're going to be quite generous on high-end, college graduates, stem and all of that because

those jobs, there is a consensus that there is a shortage. lockheed martin tried to hire 500 engineers in syracuse. they have rit 100 miles to the west, rpi 100 miles to the east. they could not get the engineers. generous on the high end. much tougher on the low skilled and, with the exception of agriculture, because we know americans don't do that work. it's a pretty deft bill on the low end. it provides for needs that people have -- tough bill on the low end. it provides for needs of people have. even the smaller construction industry, they have said, we want to change, but we're not going against the bill because nobody really is.

john said, nobody really wants to go against the bill. the bottom line is that it is a carefully balanced situation, and i think everyone's going to go along with it. >> one of the reasons they went along with it is the status quo is totally unacceptable in america today. it's unacceptable to have 11 million human beings in our society without any of the rights and protections of citizenship or a least a legal status. >> it sounds like you would vote against -- >> i'm not going to be made -- nail down on anything specific nailed down on anything specific.i don't envision changing the balance in the w visa's issue. >> [inaudible] >> can you speak up, ma'am? >> [indiscernible]

>> we decided you can't do individual bills. people say, what about me? i tried that in the last congress. high tech has more broad support than anything else. they put it in the house bill and it got more in the senate. the hispanic community said, what about us? the agriculture community said, what about us? what we found is, ironically, the best way to pass immigration legislation is actually a comprehensive bill. that can achieve more balance. everybody can get much but not all of what they want. i think the idea of doing separate bills is just not going to work. it's not worked in the past. it's not going to work in the future. >> dick durbin, to his credit,

his advocacy for the dreamers, always one to bring up the dream act. which is fine. and now let's secure the border. it has got to be a comprehensive approach. >> changing the subject, the marketplace fairness act is before the senate this week. i spoke yesterday to [no audio] to abandon the current internet bills. california has an economic presence law. amazon is also concerned that some tapes would retain their current laws, not opt in to the national system -- states would retain their current laws, not opt into the national system. >> when it came to committee, i was reluctant to support the

bill because it did not allow for the different systems within the state, particularly new york. i negotiated with new york state, senators durbin and senator nz. they have made changes in the bill so that states would have a different system but still collect the sales tax will be allowed. now new york state supports the bill. but new york will not have to change its system. the bill will allow new york state system and other states to continue as is. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] i want to switch topics. i wonder if you can comment on the gun legislation from last week. if the obama administration did all they could.

just a situation where a president can't change >> look, i've been involved in gun legislation since 1994. i was the author of the brady bill. it a very hard issue. i think it is unfair to blame the president. the president worked hard on this issue which he put political capital on the line which he made it one of the centerpieces of his state of the union address. and he went all around the country to try and rally support. my view, the way to change the votes on gun issues is to -- aside from relying on the conscious of people to do what

they think is right which plays a much larger role than many of you give congressmen and senators credit for, is to change the underlying table. and what has to happen is how were we able to pass these bills in 1994? the broad middle rose up and said we want rational laws on guns. why? because crime was ripping apart america and the police and everybody else said we have to do something. elections occurred and rightly or wrongly those bills were blamed for democrats losing control of the house and senate and for 20 years not much happened. and these mass shootings are caused the broad mid toll rise up again. i think we are at a turning point. i think the average person. we've always known the progun folks have the intensity but the other have the numbers. i think the numbers are getting more intense. for instance, when i went around my state last weekend, for the first time in very conservative areas i heard from the pro n.r.a.

people you are taking away my rights but i heard from people who said keep at it. i think that's going to happen. this is my own prediction. i think we are going to bring this bill back before the end of the year. we may change the bill a little bit but i think you will find changes out there in the public. lots of senators who thought it was safe to vote against it are not so sure anymore. >> i would just like to as i did on the floor of the senate applaud the senators who had the courage to come forward with a bill that i thought was very common sense. it wasn't exactly as i had wanted. i think we need to define the internet aspect of gun sales a little better. but i do agree with chuck that i think the issue is going to come back.

but we also have to address the fact that we are not putting criminals -- prosecuting criminals who fail gun checks and we are also not addressing the issue of crazy people who are doing terrible things whether it be in arizona or colorado or newtown connecticut. that is probably the toughest part of this issue. where do individual rights end and the obligation to protect the population begin? and we really need to have that national discussion i think in more depth. >> can you answer about the administration's role? is there anything they could have done? >> i don't know what the administration could have done. i don't know what more whenever one of these things fails, we

point the finger of blame. but i don't want to do that except to applaud the senators who come from states who have sizable and influential second amendment defenders i'll call them. >> the last question. >> this is sort of a segway back to immigration. could i ask both of you senators at this point what do you think is the most useful role that president obama could play in this immigration debate? >> i think that the role he is playing now and that is that he has encouraged the group of us that came up with this legislation. he has expressed his public support of it. and at the same time, he's not tried to dictate the terms of it. and i think that his role has been very appropriate and if we get it through the senate, then

i think he will again weigh in to try to convince our colleagues in the house to try to move forward with it. so i think his role has been exactly appropriate. >> i agree with that completely. i asked the president on several occasions to give our group, gang of 8 space because we were coming up with a bipartisan compromise. obviously the president's views on some things are things i would agree with personally but we couldn't get a bipartisan compromise on. his role was terrific. i would describe it as perfect. >> i wouldn't go that far. >> i know you wouldn't. that's why i waited for you to go first. he set certain not immutable but strong deadlines to come up with our proposal.

this has come from a bipartisan group in the senate. it's not everything the president wants which he understood that and he's playing the role exactly right. >> i want to thank you. >> could i collude with one comment? >> i do sense a slight change in the environment in the senate. i think there is a willingness to maybe address some important issues in a fashion that i was not the case in the last four years which we averted 51 votes in the filibuster from moving forward with gun legislation. there is every opportunity i think and i emphasize opportunity for a grand bargain. and so i do for the first time

in some time harbor some optimism about a chance fo bipartisan agreement on compelling issues we are facing. >> we hope that our immigration bill sets a model for doing this, coming to bipartisan agreements on other major issues and there is a desire for the majority of people in both parties, not everybody, but the majority of people in both parties to do that. i think this session is going to be a lot more productive than the last few on a whole bunch of issues. >> which is not a high bar. [laughter] >> i think reflection, part oist is reflection of extreme-- part ofit is a reflectinon

the extreme dissatisfaction that the american people have expressed in our polling data and we all seek approval. that's partth do the things we do. and to serve the people effectively and when the majority of americans think we are not doing, that sooner or later that does have an impact. the approval ratings of congress are at all time lows. and that's not -- i predict if it continues along this path, you are going to see a third party in the united states. the overwhelming increase in voter registration is independent registration and those people are voting independent because they don't find a home in either party. sooner or later that dynamic is going to affect the political landscape. >> thanks so much for doing this. like the chairman

says he is not waiting for the senate to act on immigration. and the republicans on his committee will introduce their own immigration bill. bob goodlatte told reporters .hat the first bill cap next, nancy pelosi's weekly briefing. she spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes. house republicans on thursday -- >> thank you for being here. i'm bob goodlatte. america is a nation of immigrants. everyone among us can go back a few generations were several generations to find relatives who came to america to search for a better life for themselves and their families. we are also a nation of laws. it is important that any immigration reform bill honor our history as a nation of immigrants and a respect for the

rule of law. unfortunately our immigration system today is broken. past efforts have failed and today we have 11 million people living in the shadow. this issue is not about abstract patristics and concepts but rather about real people with real problems trying to provide a better life for their families. well we agree we need to fix our immigration laws, there are many ideas about how to get to a solution. regardless of one's position on the larger debate, the way forward is for congress to pass immigration reform through regular order. in addition, we need to take a closer look at immigration reform to avoid making the same mistakes of the past again in the future. by now we are aware of the failures of the 1986 immigration overhaul. while politicians assure the american people it would fix our immigration system, promising tougher enforcement in exchange for the legalization of roughly

3 million people, it is created more problems than it fixed. the american people want to know how congress plans to avoid this to mueller outcome in the current debate surrounding immigration reform. to avoid this debate in the current surrounding immigration reform. we welcome ideas of all members of the house. we have been reaching out to those members with three things and educational meeting sessions. now close to 100 house republicans have participated in those briefings where we take them through what legal immigration is, what the law is, what the challenges are with regards to enforcement of our immigration laws. and we take them through a discussion of the different ways to address the needs of the country as a whole and the fact

that we have 11 million or more people who were unlawfully present in the country. notre in the process drawing any conclusions about the best solutions to move forward. we are very interested in what you send ng of eight has ngtten -- in what the senate of eight has written. eight has written. we believe the appropriate thing to do is for the house to begin this process. starting this week, we will be introducing individual pieces of the overall immigration puzzle. we are also very interested in what the house gang of eight produces. they have been working on this process for a long time and we are very hopeful they can reach a bipartisan agreement on what will be done to address these

major aspects of immigration reform. legal immigration reform, enforcement, and what to do about the legal status of the 11 million or more people who are here unlawfully. once bc but the house group produces produces, we will also and look aton that how the individual bills we are going to start introducing this we will have a number of other individual bills, work with what the gang of eight produces and what the will of the house judiciary committee is. we look forward to this process but we are going to take a positive, affirmative action at -- a brokenroken immigration system in this country. it is in bad need of reform in the committee and tends to examine all of the various

aspects of that. but itocess can be long allows every representative and senator to have their constituents voices heard. by taking a fine tooth comb through each of the individual issues within the larger immigration debate,, it will help us get a better bill that will benefit americans and provide a workable immigration system. willrs of the house introduce a series of stand- alone bill that tackle issues within our immigration system. one that creates a temporary agriculture guest worker program. in other requiring all u.s. .mployers to use e -- verify and we will follow with a number of other issues in coming weeks. the house judiciary committee plans to hold legislative hearings on these bills soon the members can ask questions of the legislation and look for ways to improve them.

is whato emphasize that we have decided and agreed to do at this point. we have made no decisions about how to proceed forward in terms of legislative markup, whether it would pertain to individual .ills or a larger bill at this point, we think we can help of the process forward by beginning to examine the legislative details of various ideas that members have brought forward. this is only the beginning of the process. we welcome comments from all interested parties. other bills will be introduced soon and we will have hearings on it legislative language on those two amount members to carefully vet them. immigration reform is not an easy task but a solution is not out of reach. we must make sure we get immigration reform right this time so we don't have the same problems in the future that we have had with past immigration reform bills like the one passed in 1986 or immigration reform

efforts like the one that failed in the senate in 2007 because it was driven from the top-down and not brought from the grassroots. the house representatives is that she -- is the people's house were each member listens to their constituents, bring their ideas forward and in a good legislative process works together to find common solutions. that theno doubt ultimate solution to this process will have to be bipartisan and address a number of different issues. no one should take the limited bills we are introducing here this week to be in any way an indication of our overall interest in solving all of the various aspects of immigration reform that are before the house and senate. thank you and i now want to yield to the chairman of the .ubcommittee, trey gowdy

>> thank you, mr. chairman. the resultant process to me are inextricably intertwined. the best result or product in the world is sometimes mitigated by a process that is less than confidence inspiring. the is true in the civil justice to stem a justice system and legislative system. even ideas that enjoy broad support need to be examined in the public square. it is more time-consuming, it can be argued it is more fraught with peril but those of us interested in a remedy that will , i'min us for a lifetime convinced the extra time spent examining all aspects and suggesting them to cross -- and subjecting them to cross examination will be well worth it.

thank you for letting me be a small part of this process and the yield back to the gentleman from virginia. >> we are happy to take questions. [inaudible] >> we are not to that point yet. but if we talk about adjusting the three aspects of immigration, you have to get to that point. we are looking with interest to see what the senate is doing but that. we are interested in what house members are negotiating in a by partisan fashion have to do with that. able to tellway you how that will unfold at this point. >> is there an expectation [inaudible] but it is our hope we will be

able to accomplish that. at this point, because we are taking a step is to approach and spending a lot of time holding hearings and listening to members, making sure we hold hearings on specific legislative language and ideas and because we are waiting to see what the house gang of eight produces, it is not possible to give you a legislative markup schedule but we are very intent upon getting ourselves to the point where we can do that. >> a member of your committee has said if it does not get done this year, it will not happen. you are emphasizing the need to go slow and do it right rather than fast but do you agree with that assessment? is it year or not at all? are moreon years difficult and nonelection years but it is far more important

that we get this right this time. then we live by any particular timetable. i will be cautious about setting in a kind of arbitrary limits on when this have to get done. [inaudible] >> is your committee committed to [indiscernible] ? >> i have the courage the gang of eight with their work. but they can agree upon in a bipartisan fashion will be very helpful and informative. again, no decision has been made regarding how we would proceed with that legislation or individual pieces of legislation which members of the committee will be introducing over the next few weeks.

give us a number. like there will be several. we don't know yet. ofyou mentioned inclusion an ag guestworker program. 1986 law, aer the small percentage of those coming into the country legally under the ag worker program state and agriculture. many of them went to more lucrative jobs. you expect to offer any specific things to limit that problem? , dcu.s. territory inclusion of the more permanent status? >> the legislation we are introducing is for the purpose .f getting ideas and responses

we do not use anything we are introducing as a final product. it is a work in progress. each one will be considered and viewed that way. you will be informed by what the bipartisan negotiators -- we will be looking to interest to see what is done in the senate. the agricultural worker program that followed the 1986 act did not work. our first goal is to make sure we have a worker program that works for agriculture because the issue of people staying in that the culture will be an important one. i would expect that if we had a program, it is not going to restrict people to where they work. some of the people who work in

agriculture today who may not be here lawfully may not continue to work in agriculture. one of the key components of an immigration reform bill will be to have a good agriculture worker program. i think that is fundamental to the overall process. we will look at that, but that is something we will have further discussions about. different bills [indiscernible] >> i think the value of introducing individual bills, it allows us to examine how those pieces will interact with other pieces and then how they can fit together in something larger, if we are able to find something that could have the kind of support in the house that would be necessary to pass it.

we are not passing any judgment on how that will all work out in the end, but we do believe the process needs to move forward and as it moves forward, we will be looking at a lot of issues. i would imagine that people who are working on this elsewhere will be interested in seeing what is introduced by members of the house judiciary committee, just as we are interested in seeing what they produce in the senate and in this bipartisan discussion going on in the house. >> what would you prefer though? >> i am not stating any preference at this point. this is a way for the committed to move forward on fixing are broken immigration system. >> as chairman of the house judiciary, can we get your thoughts on the boston bombing? [indiscernible] about the really immigration reform process. if you like to speak with our communications director, all be

happy to talk to you about that at a different time, but we don't want this to become too far raging. there are a lot of issues we are working with right now but i think we should limit this to immigration. been a lot of discussion as to whether those attacks are relevant to [indiscernible] >> i think there are some things we can take from that that are related to immigration. for example, the question arises, what kind of information is used in the vetting of the naturalization applications of both of the brothers. as you know, one succeeded in getting naturalization. the other was held up, and i think it would be very worthwhile knowing more about that process and what the considerations were by the immigration service in terms of making the decisions about that. i also think that it is

instructive to note that immigration reform should include consideration of how, but how law fbi, enforcement at all levels working together can help make the legal structure were better than just relying entirely on the federal government to carry out and forced -- and enforce immigration laws. that is not included in any of the bills we are introducing this week, but it's certainly a matter of discussion and to review what took place in boston, where i think it was widely viewed as very successful collaboration between local, state, and federal law enforcement that led to the speedy apprehension and getting under control of the situation in boston. >> following up on the question, did you think the

process of granting asylum should be reformed? >> we rtainly will be that as part of overall comprehensive immigration reform. we made no decisions yet another bill that we have at this point deal with this, but that is certainly. -- surly possible and will be addressed. what ideas the bipartisan groups have and we will be discussing this among ourselves and listening to other ideas, because obviously, when you talk about the issue of political asylum, people who are being persecuted elsewhere in the world, asylum is designed to give them a safe haven in the united states, but if there are people getting asylum because they are in the minority but a engaging in aggressive tactics in their home country, that may cause them to be susceptible to doing the same thing elsewhere.

that obviously ought to be part of our consideration in granting political asylum, to avoid situations like boston. >> [indiscernible] >> thus far, these are pieces of legislation that will have bipartisan support and they will not always necessarily -- we are going to have co-sponsors of the legislation, but the primary sponsor will be members of the committee and so far as they are house republican members, but we expect there will be bipartisan support for these efforts. we welcome bills from anyone who wants to introduce them, and some democrats have introduced bills already that have been sent to the committee. so we certainly would welcome their legislation, and depending upon what it does and what the house gang of eight is doing and how it fits with what we are doing on the committee, we will

certainly be willing to look at those as well. previously there is a wide range of solutions to what to do with 11 million people who are not lawfully here, and that i prefer not to see a special pathway to citizenship, but the status that would give them some kind of legal status, is something we should consider, but it will very much depend on the enforcement mechanisms that can be included in legislation and what is done about legal immigration reform, because all of these things very much in to relate to each other. what exactly can be done there remains to be seen. >> how you respond to critics who say -- accuse you of taking with all these

individual bills? >> we have been working very hard on this and we respect the efforts of others, but we encourage all of them to be careful, examine the legislation very closely, understand how each component of immigration relates to every other piece, so we don't get the law of unintended consequences taking hold in this matter. i would point out that the health group, the bipartisan group that has been negotiating this has been negotiating it for about four years. we want to see a product from that group, but we recognize, and i am sure they recognize, how difficult it is to work on this issue, and therefore making sure that we take our time is an important part of this process. as i said before, it is not whether you do it fast or slow, it is that you get it right that is most important. i think that is going to be the

hallmark of the work that we do on this legislation. [indiscernible] can you tell about being from south carolina, states that got a lot of attention with regard to immigration reform? respect, they have done a fantastic job with members of the staff from house judiciary. there have been very interactive, a very well attended, with respect to the budget and the debt bill of 2011. that has been wonderful. obviously senator graham has been on the tip of the spear, so to speak, on the senate side. nick mulvaney has recently become more engaged on

immigration. i represent a district with less than 2% latino voters, so this is not a political exercise to me, which is why i appreciate the approach the chairman has taken. i would like a remedy that sustains us for the remainder of my lifetime, so i am much more interested in the process being one that is confidence inspiring than a political remedy. i did go to jeff denham is district, which is very different from south carolina. i am looking to travel more, if my colleagues want someone that talks slowed to come to their district, i am happy to do that, too. --is good for me to see that surprisingly, the thread that weave through all of these districts is a desire to make sure this is the last time we have this conversation as a country.

that withadd to regard to your question, this education process is a very important part of getting this done right, because we have to have by and from members of congress to understand the nature of the problem in the first place, and in the various ideas to solve it. most members of congress do not have a tremendous background in immigration law. we are fortunate on the committee to have three members who have practiced immigration law prior to coming to congress. that is not true of the overwhelming majority of members of the house on both sides of the aisle. as a result of that, these educational sessions are very important. to 100oted, we or close who participated, but that still leaves about 130 who have not. so it takes time to get members to put this on their schedule,

to know how important it is, and i think our function in moving legislation into the committee so that we can look at its and hold legislative hearings on it, which we are now beginning that process, will be a wake-up call to those who have not come, to say you better come down and start looking seriously at what we are doing on immigration, because we do have broken immigration system and the house does intend to play a leading role in making sure this is addressed. >> [indiscernible] anything that does not star with more security is going nowhere. >> first of all, i think that when you look at the senate bill, one of the things we have to consider in the house is, are we going to be able to assure those members and a great number

of the american people that border security component, which is being worked on by chairman mccall and homeland security primarily that is their jurisdiction, and the interior enforcement issues. interior other enforcement issues which we think will be addressed in legislation that will be introduced into the committee in the not too distant future, are very important. i think that any discussion about what happens with the legal status of people has to look at, are those things going to happen? let me give you this one example. for 18 years we have been waiting for the immigration service to produce an entry-exit system so people will know when they enter the country legally -- and by the way, 30-40% of the people who are not lawfully

present in the country today entered illegally under business the villa -- business thesa, a student visa, and simply overstay the time they are allowed to be present in the country, that type of enforcement mechanism and the promise of it has to be more than just a promise in this legislation. standpointfrom the of assuring folks these things will be in place before start giving legal status to people is part of this discussion, but it does not have to be all in one separate bill and then come back and revisit the other later. it can all be looked at in one piece of legislation or several, as we have pointed out at into an item this morning. infinitum. >> are you bringing in any outsiders, and who might they be?

is that you would like to go across the country, is anything sked or in areas that you would specifically like to visit to help better understand this? went to ast time i party of was not invited to, i did not have a good time. so i am waiting until my colleagues in bite me, but i have made it clear he did in fact, i have invited year-old -- until my colleagues invite me. myave invited raoul, i want colleagues to hear his perspective. i will go anywhere i am invited, keeping in mind my first preference is to be in south carolina with my family. -- i will certainly go to am happy to go to texas or illinois. i will go wherever i am invited, but i don't want to inject

myself and someone's district absent an invitation. inthis note to that, and regard to your first question, he not had outsists come to attend those sessions, but we have not preclude the possibility of doing that going forward. right now we have rather intense education and very complex subject that takes quite a bit of time and allows an even greater amount of time for members to interject and ask questions, make comments. that is really what we are trying to stimulate. on the dream act, and if you would support something similar to that. >> as we look at the overall issue of immigration reform and the status of those who are not lawfully present in the country, it should be obvious that people who are brought here by their parents are in a different status in the eyes of a great

many american people than people who willfully violated the immigration laws either in crossing the border or entering the country legally and then overstaying their visas. but it raises a good point that you don't have to consider the 11 million as one body of people. not going to be covered by any legalization program. you have a number of different categories of people that could be looked at four different treatment, but no decisions have been made about how to do that at this point. thenll take these two and we will call it quits. how important is the issue of payment of back taxes by these people? >> first of all, the cost of doing immigration reform is going to obviously be something that not just the committee but

the entire congress will have to look at closely. one of the things you can look at is what would be required of legal status in order to address the fact that there are lots of government programs, lots of costs, but also perhaps there can be some help in meeting those costs. again, no decisions have been made about that at this time. wonder if you could comment on the proposal in the senate with the new agency that would determine numbers of low- skilled labor? >> we are looking at that. as you will see, because we will be introducing agriculture guest worker bill this week, you will see that there is an interest in addressing the issues that arise when you have certain sectors of our economy that have

shortfalls of workers, and we want to make sure that works both for u.s. citizens who want to work in those areas and for the employers to have shortages of workers so they can meet them, but beyond the agricultural work, no additional decisions have been made. we will be looking closely at what the senate bill includes. with that, we thank you all. this is the communications director of the committee. those who did not get to ask a question or have a follow-up question, see catherine and we will try to accommodate your interest. thank you all for coming out today. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] democratic house leader nancy pelosi's weekly briefing. she spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes.

>> good morning. is this it for bring son and daughter to work day? >> [indiscernible] welcome. >> [indiscernible] >> i thought yours were all miami of ohio when you bring them in. thank you for being here. democrats, led by -- oh, one more. hi, how are you? welcome. i did not bring the chocolate candy. come to my office. democrats, led by our ranking member on the house budget committee, chris van hollen, have introduced a resolution calling upon speaker boehner to appoint conferees to reach a budget agreement. we want to resolve the sequester. the sequester is harmful to the education of our children, the nutrition of seniors -- 4 million meals on wheels cut out of it -- workers on unemployment benefits are

reduced, all americans in terms of travel for work, family reasons, for recreation, parks -- we can resolve the sequester issue. we can resolve the sequestration by going to the conference table. it is important to know what appointing conferees means. it means you go to the table to resolve your differences. you do so in a fair and open process, transparent, in public view, and open to the press. it is the regular order. thatar order is something the republicans have requested over and over again, except when it is time for the regular order, they walk away from it. perhaps it is lack confidence in the power of their ideas. perhaps they can't take the scrutiny of the american people

seeing the difference in our budget priorities, a budget much like what president obama has put forth and the democratic budget bill, about investing in jobs and reducing the deficit in a fiscally sound way, a very positive budget which is a statement of our national values, which a budget is supposed to be. what are the republicans afraid of? why do they not want to have this discussion in the open? again, our members are supporting mr. van hollen's call for conferees, as you have seen senator reid do as well in his house. instead of going to conference -- we are wasting time. for two days we have been debating a bill that could have been passed by unanimous consent, the helium bill. wasted time on a health bill

that was ill advised. they did not even have the votes on their side. they had to pull it. that is our work product for this week. aboutse of time is obstruction, obstruction of legislation to create jobs, to deal with the budget, to end sequestration, and obstruction on gun safety. last week mike thompson was here with me. king then, he and peter have sent a letter to members asking them to be co-sponsors on our bipartisan house bill, which mirrors the toomey-manchin bill. it is important to know what it does. what it does is it is requires enforceable background checks on gun sales, at gun shows, on the internet. what it does not do is create a

registry. in fact, the bill prohibits a federal gun registry. prohibits it. so it is supported by the international chiefs of police, a bipartisan majority in the senate, and 90% of the american people. if you are against criminals having guns, you should support the background check legislation. there is no time to hold back on this. again, we all say we are going to react and make change following the gun violence in our country recently. i do not want to go into it, but we have to push forward to get the job done. anre not taking no for answer on this subject. this bill had command of the

sponsors in the senate and in the house, representatives king and thompson, for threading the needle just right fit for what gets the job done, which honors the second amendment, but protects the american people. and so we call upon the speaker to give us a vote on this legislation. anyll be pleased to take questions you may have. >> what roles have you played in the talks to exempt congress from the health care exchanges? do you know anything about them? do you think that is a good idea? caresupport the affordable act. i think the federal employee health benefit plan could be a plan under the exchanges, and i

am in close contact with mr. hoyer as he is in those conversations. >> is that at all hypocritical? >> no, i think the reading the legislation carefully as to what it calls for and what an exchange is and how the federal health benefit plan is compatible under the exchange, we just have to look at all of that. one thing is for sure. i do not know what the motivation was in writing that piece to treat some members of congress and some employees differently, if you work for a leadership or committee you are treated differently, or if you work for members of us -- i think whenever the outcome is, people have to be treated the same. hishairman goodlatte said

panel is going to start the immigration on a piecemeal approach. he said he was personally opposed to a pathway to citizenship. would house democrats support a bill that does not include a pathway to citizenship? >> i can tell you, overwhelmingly in our caucus, legalization and citizenship is an important part of our principles. secure our borders, protect our workers, unite families, and a path to citizenship, as well as the visas, where the stakeholders between business and labor, farm workers and growers -- those stakeholders have worked out agreements that are part of the bill, and it is a very, very good bill. i do not think we want america to be a place where we have two

kinds of people in our country. we make comments about other countries that have workers come in and they are in a different category no matter how long they have lived in the country, how much they contribute to the economic success of that country. but i do not see the house democrats supporting a bill of that kind. but i'm optimistic that the bill that the senate passes their bill, if and when, there is strong bipartisan support in the house for a path to legalization and, hence, to citizenship. >> in terms of the health care issue, are you worried the way republicans are spinning this that democrats in congress will not to subject their own employees on the health care law. could that have ramifications -- >> that will not happen. that will not be happening. the bill has been written. it is a question of interpretation, and we want

everybody to be treated the same. i do not subscribe to the notion that we did not win the election because of the health care bill. if we did, for tens of millions of americans to have health care was well worth any of our political careers, in my view. yes, sir. intelligencehouse briefing, did the suspect stop talking after being read his rights, and are you concerned that valuable intel might have been lost because of that? >> i am not able to covey to you what was happening in an intel briefing. i have confidence in our law enforcement and intelligence leadership at work on this, and we have to fully investigate it, and we will find out at the end of the day who said what, when, whether in the investigation, or before. it is not to me to tell you what happened. >> you spoke about sequester.

of the things we have heard about -- [indiscernible] one effort might be to try to diminish the impact of these in the faa. what route do you see for this? >> what are you suggesting they're suggesting? >> i have been told that they might try to do some amendments to handle the furloughs differently, or give them more flexibility. >> is the money coming out of the sequestration money, or is it going to another source? >> that is unclear. >> the answer to all of your questions, whatever they may be, is to go to the conference table. thew somebody said

sequestration is not hurting safety. well, two things on that score. we will not harm safety, but it does have an impact on the effectiveness and moving the american people from one place to the next. if you are suggesting there should be faa money within the faa, within the sequester, then you may start affecting safety, because where will the money come from to cover what the shortfall that the sequestration has caused in one part of it? the other suggestion is to take money from other accounts of the transportation department. i find that less onerous than within sequestration. you know what -- we are just fooling ourselves if we think that we are doing the american people any favor by not finding a real solution.

a real solution is to go to the table and have a reconciliation of the budget. let the american people see and compare whose budget is one they would identify as reflecting their values, as jobs-creating, deficit-reducing, and something that takes us into the future. that is what the republicans fear. they fear the scrutiny on their budget. it is based on false numbers. we know that now. it is based on a premise that says if your deficit goes to x percentage of gdp, then you have to cut. no, that is how we got to the high deficit in relationship to gdp. it is exactly turned upside down, and i think that the clear analysis of the premise on which they built this budget shows that if you want to reduce the

deficit, cutting investments in education and public sector investments that create jobs, inject demand into the economy, again creating jobs, more jobs, then that would be the path to grow. this is a debate that i think -- that is why we come to conference. we have differences of opinion. usually, we can reconcile them, but you have to be at the table to do that -- unless you fear the public awareness of what you are proposing. what is being proposed is something that is anti-growth, anti-growth, anti-growth, with jobs. that is the standard that i think the american people want any budget to meet -- growth with jobs as a way to reduce the deficit. yes. >> when you see republicans stretch a helium bill that could you see them pull it frantically, somebody who has been in boehner's position, what

are your thoughts about that series of events? >> what do you think about it? don't you think it is ridiculous? the fact is there is a use of the time of congress. there is a use of opportunity to find a solution for the american people. the helium bill is a fine bill. it should have never been anything proposed earlier on to necessitate the bill, but the bill is there, it could have passed by u.c. on the floor, or put up on suspension. that they are dragging this out is a waste of taxpayer dollars, it is a waste of the time on the floor of the house, it is an opportunity cost of bringing other legislation to the floor that will make progress, to take us forward. it is just to fill time so they can say they have x numbers of days of legislation that congress was in.

it is almost a frivolous use of the congressional schedule. >> i want to ask about the health care bill that came up yesterday -- the club for growth and heritage action made it a scored no vote. that has happened with several other priority bills for the leadership, and then they went away or they failed or had to pass with democratic support. how important do you think these groups are in shaping what is happening on the floor? >> let we say this bill you talked about on the floor yesterday was taking money from the prevention fund and put it into a high-risk pool, giving the illusion of doing something for people -- false. wrong. not right. it is similar to its cousin that is coming down the road in a

couple of weeks, which is the comp time bill, which is really an assault on working families, while making it look like they have some say in whether they have comp time or overtime, and it is an assault on overtime. again, it is their softer side, which is really a facade that is not real, it does not help people, but they want to give the impression that they do, while just putting it right in the category of all the things they do. we want tax cuts for the rich, but we do not want to raise the minimum wage. we want fiscal responsibility, and we probably should be cutting food stamps, but don't let us raise the minimum wage, which would eliminate the necessity of people having to put food on the table by having food stamps. i wonder what working people ever did to the republicans that they so have it out for them. no increase in the minimum wage,

almost insulting them for relying on any public support, which is necessitated by not having a livable wage in our country, which they oppose. this was something that was an illusion that even the republicans even saw through. it was a fake, as is this comp time bill. judge it by the company it keeps. no increase in the minimum wage, and let's take care of the budget deficit, but not by everybody paying their fair share, but by marking people who rely on assistance. so that is what i think of it. ok. i will see those of you who are coming by for bring your children to work day. thank you.

but house republicans on thursday called on the obama administration and the faa to be more flexible to avoid employee furloughs affecting air travel. it is 20 minutes. >> good afternoon. this weekend i'm going to hop on a plane and fly back to washington and i'll be joining other americans who have been stuck on tarmacs, waiting at airport gates waiting for hours for their flights to take off. this has happened because of the way the president and f.a.a. have chose on the implement the sequester. this problem is entirely preventable. the f.a.a.

has known about the sequester for two years. but gave the airline industry less than a week's notice of its implementation plans. now they've chose on the implement in the most counter productive way. and americans are paying the price for it. today it was announced that there would be no fur lows at the justice department. t.s.a. on march 1 there were threats we were going to have long lines getting through t.s.a. they have decided they won't have to furlough their employees. at a time when families are traveling across the country to see their kids graduate from college, and take care of business, these delays are inexcusable. this morning i had a group of school kids who had spent most of the day and night getting here and they missed their capital tour because they were

late. the chamber of commerce flew out yesterday and it was a long, long trip. the worst part is this all could have been prevented and should have been prevented and it would have been prevented if we would have worked together to replace the sequester. now we need to solve this problem. it's time for the president to stop playing politics with the american people. >> thank you very much. we've said from the very beginning that the administration, the president and the f.a.a. have the flexibility to solve this problem. but what they've done as the chair just said, they implemented this in the most painful way possible to the flying public, to our airline industry and i believe the american people are seeing through that. that's why yesterday secretary lahood admitted to the flawed

strategy to try to some limited fix. i believe the f.a.a. has the ability and flexibility without passing a law to move money around within that organization to not have these furloughs happen. with 47,000 employees there are 15,000 air traffic controllers. they should look first to the people in the offices that aren't essential to safety for the american people. we are willing to look at what the senate is going to propose. but i believe we don't need to pass legislation. if we do it should be limited and directing the f.a.a. to use the flexibility they have presently to not have these furloughs which are causing great harm to our economy.

the flying public and delays are costing them money and costing all americans in the economy money with the way this has irresponsibly been implemented. i urge the f.a.a. and president to get back to the table and roll up their sleeves and figure out how to do this without affecting your economy. >> this administration is being passive aggressive at least or in the words of the "chicago tribune"'s editorial yesterday, the president's hometown paper intentionally imposing air traffic slowdowns. it's rid. ridiculous.- it's this is no way to run things. they are being incompetent in how they've approached this. they've had ample opportunity, months and months and months and months of warning this was upon them and they chose at a very late hour to come one this remedy. it is absurd. to treat o'hare airport in the exact same fashion that waterloo, iowa with 80 flights a day the same is ridiculous.

president obama signed into the law the passenger bill of rights which admonishes airlines for imposing delays and puts massive fines on them if they fail to comply. where is the remedy for the public when it is their very own government that is failing at such an epic level in >> the f.a.a. already has the ability to make these adjustments. two solicitor generals for the bush administration and clinton administration have stepped forward and said the f.a.a. has the ability to make these

adjustments. when the blueprint for the current sequester was implemented, f.a.a. had a reduction during that time period. there were no furloughs for air traffic controllers at the as well. this has been done before. in addition no that, multiple airports are being treated the same way. you have airports that have more air traffic controllers than are required for the basic standards, you have others that have less. they are being treated the same way across the board. this is a silly way to apply this. and the frustrating thing is f.a.a. folks are being used as pawns by this administration to be able to implement maximum amount of pain on the american people when it does not have to be this way. >> to tag along with what my colleagues have said, the f.a.a. modernization bill had specific language granting the

flexibility. i do not understand how jay carney can get up day after day and say this is across the board with a straight face. one of my colleagues said that eric holder is not furloughing anyone from his operation. well negotiate is vice president biden because they have the flexibility. we had janet napolitano announce there were going to be 5,000 border guards furloughed and somehow magically they don't have to be furloughed. this isn't across the board. to impose this pain on the american people when the flexibility language is there is unconscionable. it hurts afternoon every day-- average everuy day people who are trying to fly. >> when my children were small and growing up and they wanted to start making excuses for why they did not get something done, i would look at them and say could have, should have, would have does not solve the problem.

that is basically what we are saying to the f.a.a. they knew that this was coming. they've had 18 months to make their plans. it is out of selfishness and foolishness that they have chosen to ignore what was coming their way. they've known it all along. their goal obviously is to make life uncomfortable for the traveling public and to be inflicting uncertainty on the 15,000 air traffic controllers. they knew it was coming but they made a decision not to address who was in front of them. instead they are inflicting a time tax on every member of the traveling public. it is requiring more of their time to get processed on those flights and to their destination. could have, should have, would

have. they made their decision and now people have figured them out. >> l.a., san francisco, san diego all three of the busiest airports in the nation, people traveling large distances. not only constituents being delayed as they travel or come to washington, d.c. but more importantly i've been talking to company that is utilize air travel to transport organs or plasma and the delays that they are causing can also have devastating effects on your communities as well. lives are at risk when government decides to arbitrarily pick a mode of transportation and start playing around with those dynamics. the president, his plan was put into motion over a year and a

half ago, yet he waits until just a week ago to start notifying air traffic controllers. it's irresponsible. >> as we've heard throughout this entire press conference, it's the administration putting politics over passengers. and i'd like to call on president obama to show some leadership right now and deal with this situation. make sure the f.a.a. is making the decisions that they should make. we've shown they have the flexibility to move their budget numbers around and make sure these furloughs don't affect passengers. they are not doing that. and president obama needs to show some leadership now. >> mr. president this is the wrong way to run the railroad. it's the wrong way to run the skies of america. i'm from montgomery.-- i'm from

montant. a. flying in and out of our state is often a day long event. we're a large rural state without a major hub. that means a long day of traveling is the norm. the f.a.a. 4% spending reduction has resulted in the delay of over 40% of the flights significantly impeded air traffic operations in the most painful way possible. it is ridiculous that hardworking americans are cancelling summer trips because of the president and the f.a.a. would rather play politics than find real solutions and some common sense cuts. the president is putting politics ahead of passengers and it needs to end. if you look at the data in 2001, there were approximately 30,000 departures a day. today there are 21,000. 2001 we were spending about $5 billion a year to manage that.

today we are spending over $12 billion. 30% reduction in demand with an increase in cost which we have about the same number of air traffic controller and operation people, around 15,000 then and now. is it a people problem? it's not really a people problem because we have the resources there. we have too much human resources. if they are able to handle 30% more we may have over. it's not demand that's up that is causing the problem. it's not a resource issue. we've applied more than 100% increase to funding over time. it's not people, it's not demand, it's not money. what is it? it's politics. it's how this town works. we need to fix it. thanks. >> i associate myself with the

comments by my colleagues all. there is another aspect of this though that we must consider when looking at the irresponsible decisions being made by the president and the f.a.a. all across this country every day we have military flights both operational and training -- and training. they too require a fully staffed and manned air traffic control operation. i spent 26 years in the air supports force and i have thousands of hours of instruction time teaching military pilots how to fly by instruments and navigation. i know how important the air traffic control network is. this is an irresponsible position that the administration

has taken. you've heard it documented, it's well known. they've got the flexibility to do the right thing. to cut administrative, to cut redundancy but leave air traffic controllers in their seats so they can keep the skies friendly and safe. mr. president. director of the f.a.a., you need to come back to the table and do your job. >> i got on the plane to come here earlier this week. i was outraged. they announced at the gait the plane has been delayed because of the furlough of the air traffic controllers and the sequester. we get on the plane and they back the plane up and the pilot gets on and says we've been sequestered and blamed on the furloughs and all of that. i thought it was interested today we are seeing reports where air traffic controllers they've been told by management to inflict as much pain as possible on the american public. this is outrageous what this administration is doing.

it's comparable to canceling the white house tours. it's interesting the $10 billion operating budget almost $3 billion is non-operating they are not touching. consultants and travel and other activities, $150 million to maintain a fleet of 140 aircraft of their own. they want to inflict pain on the american people. to pass higher taxes on the american public. >> you've all made clear here you feel like f.a.a. has the authority already but the senate is working on some legislation that would explicit little grant that authority. is that something the house

would ever take up? >> there are a couple of things they are talking about. we don't need to spend one more penny on the f.a.a. they have enough money to do this. they have the flexibility today to move money around to fund these operations. as was mentioned by my colleagues, you look at treasury and homeland security, they are able to do this without furloughing people. and these are essential to the safety of the traveling public. you start with the back office folks here in washington, d.c. that's where we should start. we'll take a look at what the senate proposes but i still believe they have the flexibility and not sure where the senate is going with this but we're in conversation with them. >> if you feel the f.a.a. has flexibility, why look at what the senate is going to send you at all? >> we will consider what they are going to propose. i don't know exactly. i continue to stress if we are

going to pass legislation maybe it should be for to us direct the f.a.a. to utilize the flexibility that havev.-- that they without giving them flexibility moving other dollars. but i've been resisting that because i think the f.a.a. managers if they are given the orders from the white house, from the secretary of transportation to get in there and figure it out they know best. we've been resistant on that. if that comes the case they won't do that we may consider directing them to deploy that flexibility. >> if you get rid of the essential air [inaudible] would any of you be willing to get rid of? >> this is not time to talk ability big policy questions. it's a time to solve a problem that we face today. >> hire is a look at our -- here is a look at our prime time

schedule. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] the house of representatives will pick that up on friday. >> senator john mccain says president obama told him in a letter that syrian president assad is -- has likely used chemical weapons against his people. this mentor told reporters he hopes the president considers establishing a no-fly zone over syria and providing weapons to the syrian opposition but not send u.s. troops there. he was joined by senator lindsey graham.

>> i just received a letter from the president in response to our question about whether assad had used chemical weapons and i will quote from the operative part. our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the regime has used chemical weapons in syria specifically the chemical agent. and goes on to describe that. the president of the united states said if assad used chemical weapons, it would be a game changer and that it would

cross a red line. i think it's obvious that red line has been crossed. now i hope the administration will consider what we've been recommended after two years of this blood letting and massacre and that is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate, to establish a no fly zone and provide weapons to the people in the resistance who we trust. everything that the non- interventionist said would happen in syria if we didn't intervene has happened. there are chemical weapons being used. the massacres continue. the russians are continuing to assist assad and the iranians are all in. it requires the united states assistance. it does not mean boots on the ground. finally we have to have

operational capability to secure these chemical weapon stocks. we do not want them to fall into the wrong hands. and the wrong hand are a number of participants in the struggle that is taking place in syria. there are three primary goals that can be achieved if we act quickly. number one, secure the chemical weapons before they fall into the wrong hands. from my point of view, the international community should be working with the syrian council the day after assad false that we secure the weapons and secure them so they can't be used against us or anyone else. secondly, contain this fighting so that the king of jordan does not fall. 480,000 refugees have flowed into jordan with no end in sight which they have been a stabilized influence in the

middle east. jordan is under pressure from the effects of syria. the third is to control the inevitable war. we've let this go so long. if we would have listened to senator mccain a few years ago we wouldn't have this problem. there are 6,000 al qaeda type fighters in syria. the country is fragmenting and chaos is raining. the day assad false there will be as surely as i'm standing here a conflict between the majority of syrians who want to move forward and live in peace and a radical jihadist and that need to be planned for. the sooner assad leaves the better for the world. >> no questions.

>> what about -- [inaudible] >> we had a briefing on that. >> north korea? >> north korea the chinese still hold the key to north korea. there are some sign that is they are getting a little weary of the antics of this young man. but still it's a very dangerous situation. >> let me point out again the situation in syria is unacceptable. the president of the united states said this would be a red line if they used chemical weapons. the president of the united states told us they used chemical weapons. those stocks of chemical weapons some of which are in disputed areas must be secured and we must give the opposition the cape ability to drive out assad once and for all. and our relations with russian should be directly related to

their assistance of assad. [inaudible] >> what is the assistance that the united states has already given? >> it's non-lethal. it's a half measure. you win wars by having overwhelming force. the situation on the ground today is stalemate with the iranians and russians all in and the united states give them flak jackets. that is not comforting when scud missiles are hitting you. >> can i say something about boston? >> boston is becoming to me a case study in system failure. just look at it from a 30,000 foot point of view. you have russian intelligence services contacting two agencies within our government responsible for our security. the f.b.i. and c.i.a. they tell us we believe you have a radical islamist in your

midst. we do interviews and some things i think is responsible. however this suspected radical islamist is able to go back to russia without the f.b.i. being made aware of it even though homeland security was. that system failure almost 12 years after 9/11. and it gets worse. the suspected radical islamist, the person we got warning letters about is openly on the internet for months talking about killing americans and engaging in radical gentleman had against the united states and we were unable to connect the dots and pick that up. the rest is history. between benghazi and boston, our systems are failing and we are going backwards. bin laden may be dead but the war against radical islam is

alive and it's on the march and we need to up our game. >> [inaudible] onno.>> during an interview newsmakers, representative adam smith was asked what the u.s. should do about reports that syria has used chemical weapons on his own people. >> what do we do about it? the president said it was a red mind but my big thing here is that we be cautious about how we respond. i do not want to commit u.s. troops and forces to syria. i don't think that would be a wise use of our resources. being able to secure the ismical weapons in syria extraordinarily difficult, if possible at all. we will have to have very

serious conversations with partners in the region about how we proceed. what has not been set by the administration be on the redline is what that means. what will they do? what is the best response? i urge caution. we do not need another war. >> of the transportation is the --ic of this documentary public transportation is the topic of this documentary a student some farragut middle school in knoxville, tennessee. they look at the financial and environmental benefits of a national high-speed rail system. out of 802 middle school injuries, they are first prize winners -- middle school entries, they are first prize winners. >> picture no traffic, happy citizens just biking, walking and enjoying the fresh air.

this community is not a dream but reality. this community in germany. everywhere you look, you can see solar panels. it is taking a step towards a greener community i relying only on public transportation, biking, and walking. even with all the technology they have some a there are some infrastructure issues like any community. >> there are some [inaudible] [indiscernible] 'infrastructure is very old. the interstate is molar -- more than 50 years agold. traffic and congestion. >> it has a cost. there are a lot of studies about .hat that cost is

the take away is very simple. it cost several billion dollars to our economy. >> the average american spent 36 hours a year in traffic and spends hundreds of wasted gas. u.s. economye about $200 billion annually. >> the federal highway it ministration is working to eliminate congestion. >> working in partnership with the state to help alleviate congestion. >> one point five cents a gallon is there funding mechanism. time to raisee all the money we need to reduce congestion. $2.2e us-based invest trillion to keep takes with infrastructure needs.

>> that is a lot of money to keep all the cars, trains, and buses safe on the road. public transportation such as ,uses, subways, ferry boats trams and trollies survey large variety of people. >> there are people who cannot and they don't live with their children. even if they live with their theiren, they cannot take parents around all the time. .> teens can take the bus this not only helps them today but future drivers like us. societies in which public transit carries a large percentage of travel, people tend to be happier and healthier. orwhen a transit route system is being planned, there

is great emphasis on five arcs -- on sidewalks and the quality of the surrounding area walking wise. most people walk to this transit stop. >> this is not the only benefit. but the transportation can help solve one the greatest problems of our time. >> we are continuing to burn more and more fossil fuels until after everything we can find. fracking, deep ocean drilling. this guarantees that we are going to pass to our children and grandchildren the planet with the climate out of their control. large public transit system in the u.s. can greatly benefit our environment. savesnsit use currently the u.s. equivalent of $4.2 billion -- billion gallons of

gasoline annually. it can definitely be run on renewable because you can use wind or solar to generate electricity, geothermal. and nuclear energy. >> not only the public transportation help the world around us, it is easy on our wallets. >> we spent $.16 on every dollar as americans on transportation, largely the cost of owning and operating a vehicle. , you use public transit save about $10,000 a year -- if you use public transit, you save about $10,000 a year. >> she said -- public transportation benefits the environment and the daily lives of the common citizen.

and catch up with other developed nations. >> for high-speed rail to be we haveally feasible, to have high demand. which does not exist now. they are saying we cannot build it because there is not enough demand. you will not get demand unless you build and provide a good service. >> high-speed rail will also yield economic benefits. >> a lot of business wants to locate where their clients could the coming in. they look for good airports, good rail service so it will attract more economic activities. has morer john kerry perspective on the issue. >> the discussion of rail comes at a critical time for our economy.

that high-speed tol is absolutely critical our ability to transform the american economy. >> not everybody feels the same way. >> high-speed rail would be very expensive and not worth the cost. if nobody believes the high- speed rail will cover its capital cost, then why have 39 states apply for grants for high-speed rail? [indiscernible] >> improving transportation and high-speed rail is a great idea. but it will take time and be costly. also, many people are apprehensive on writing public transportation. it has been shown that if you put more of it, people will come. take the knoxville bus station, for example.

correctly has been increased -- >> we have seen an increase of 50% in the last 10 years. --2012 that were 3 million there were 3 million. >> we can make this country safer. >> if you can convince the american people to build and use public transportation, we can make this country greener. a network willn establish the united states as a sustainable community. >> congratulations to the winners in this years competition. to to see more winning videos, go to studentcam.org. >> today's dedication ceremony for the george w. bush presidential center at smu in dallas. senator john mccain and charles schumer on their bipartisan immigration bill. more about immigration after that from representative bob goodlatte, chairman of the house

judiciary committee. fda commissioner testifies on capitol hill tomorrow morning about the $4.5 billion budget request which we will -- which includes millions for food safety. biased coverage is on c-span two on c-span coverage is two at 10:30. then u.s. policy in chechnya in the north caucasus. also a discussion between the u.s. and russia in combating terrorism. in. went i walked into the little kiosk. i said i am here to report. a guard came up and said i knew one of your campaign managers in ohio. i said ok. got down in their.

the guard said here, you have some hate mail. it was from california and massachusetts. they gave me the mail. you go through the most embarrassing part of the stripped-down and then i got into the intake, walked into prison, down into the courtyard. the warden -- i won't use the language i do in the book, but the warden told the man get away from him, he can find his own way. i am sitting there not knowing where to go, where i am staying. what close to get. where isrisoner said your escort? is that i don't know, some little guy in a suit yelled some foul language. he took me in the back way of the monte room, i walked in and a man is sitting there and he said are you the congressman? is it, used to be. he said, are you a republican? i said republicans put me in here.

he said, i was the mayor of east cleveland. welcome, i'll get you some clothes. ney sunday atob 8:00 on c-span's q and a. george w. bush presidential center dedication. five living presidents were joined by the world leaders, governors and members of congress for the seven -- for the ceremony. this is a little less than an hour and a half. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. please direct your attention to the main stage as angela turner wilson purchases "god bless performs "god bless america."

♪ god bless america land that i love stand beside her and guide her thru the night with a light from above from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam god bless america my home sweet home god bless

america my home sweet home ?? god bless america, land that i love, stand beside her and guide her thru the night with a light from above. from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam god bless america, my home sweet home god

bless america, my home sweet home ?? [cheers and applause] >> please welcome the chairman of the george w. bush foundation board of directors, donald l. evans. [applause]

>> good morning and welcome to the george w. bush presidential center and to the beautiful campus of southern methodist university in dallas, texas. i'm proud to be here with all of you here today as we dedicate this beautiful building to the american people. two years ago, we broke ground on this site and the hard work of many people is realized in the building behind me today. of course, no one has done more to make this place possible than president george w. bush and mrs. laura bush. [applause] i've had the honor of calling them my friends for more than 40 years and i've been privileged to witness firsthand the instead resolve and principled leadership of president bush.

those who come here will learn about that leadership and about a consequential time in american history. researchers and scholars will study the presidential records housed in the archives. students and museum visitors will learn about the modern american presidency, first decade of the 21st century, and the story of george and laura bush. on the other side of this building is the george w. bush institute. here, thinkers and doers are working to advance freedom and defend the principles that guided president and mrs. bush throughout their lives and through their service to texas, america and the world. today is the day to celebrate president and mrs. bush for their commitment to this country, to honor the american presidency and to look forward to the impact this most important civic institution will leave on the lives of people in

our country and around the world. we are honored that you have joined us today. welcome. ♪applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, the 46th vice president of the united states, richard b. cheney. [applause] mrs. lucy b. johnson. mrs. linda j. robb. mrs.

tricia nixon cox. susan ford-bales. mr. ♪ichael reagan.

ladies and gentlemen, first lady of the united states, mrs. michelle obama, mrs. laura bush, mrs. hillary rodham clinton, mrs. barbara bush, mrs. ♪osalynn carter.

♪ ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states, barack obama, president george w. bush, president bill clinton, president george h.w. bush, president jimmy carter. ♪cheers and applause]

[applause] please remain standing for the invocation by the reverend mark craig followed by the presentation of colors.

>> let us pray. we have gathered here today, oh, god, to offer thanks for the life and the legacy of president and mrs. george w. bush. we thank you for their distinguished leadership to our nation. moreover, we are grateful for their moral courage and commitment to public service. oh, god, our lord, creator and sustainer, today we honor a man who genuinely believes in your quest of freedom for all. we ask that president bush and his family continue to feel the prayers and support of people all over the world who recognize his past and continued work for the expansion of freedom. we ask your blessings upon the george w. bush presidential center and all who will walk through these

doors. we pray that it will serve as a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the world. we pray that it will remind each and every one of us of our nation's heroic past and generate noble insights for future leaders of our country. grant that each of us today will rededicate our lives to the values of this great institution. as we continue to learn the lessons of history, help us to live out the words of the prophet micah, "to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our god," we pray all these things in thy name, amen. >> amen. thank you, mark. ♪> thank you.

♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the pledge of allegiance led by first lieutenant melissa stockwell, united states army.

>> i pledge allegiance to the flag of united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> please be seated. ladies and gentlemen, the chair of the george w. bush institute advisory board, dr. condoleeza rice. [applause] >> good morning. mr. president and mrs. obama, president and mrs.

carter, president and mrs. george h.w. bush, president and mrs. clinton and president and mrs. bush, i have the honor of introducing a number of global leaders, national leaders and texas state leaders who have come to join us on this momentous occasion. as your name is called, may i ask you to stand and may i ask the audience to hold your applause so we can acknowledge our global leaders together. president of the republic of georgia, former president of spain, president aknar, the former president of ghana, john kufor, the former president of south korea, le man bok, and mrs. kim. former president of el salvador, former prime minister silvio

berlusconi of italy. former prime minister tony blair and mrs. sharee blair of the united kingdom. former prime minister and mrs. john howard of australia, former prime minister and mrs. ehud olmert of israel, former secretary general -- current secretary general of nato, mr. fogg rasmussen. his royal highness of saudi arabia, abdul al-khalifa of bahrain, former ambassador to the united states, ambassador sen of india. current ambassador to the united states, ambassador of kuwait,

ambassador of indonesia, ambassador amid, hakemi and mrs. hakemi of afghanistan, ambassador of botswana, the german chief admission, mr. hannafeld, please join me in acknowledging and welcoming our global leaders. [applause] i would now like to acknowledge the governor of texas, rick perry. [applause] the governor of arizona, jan brewer. [applause] the governor of new jersey, chris christie and mrs. mary christie. [applause]

the former governor of alabama, bob riley, and the former governor of michigan, john anglers and his wife, michelle. i want to greet the following members of congress -- senator ted cruz and his wife, heidi, of texas, senator john cornyn of texas, former senator bill frist, former senator kay bailey hutchinson, the speaker of the house, congressman john boehner and his wife, debby. congressman jeff kinsarling. congresswoman kay granger, congressman michael burgess,

congressman pete sessions, congressman mike conaway, congressman kenny martin, congressman john mica, and now, of the texas elected representatives, lieutenant governor david duhearst, speaker of the texas house of representatives, joe strauss, the mayor of dallas, michael rawlings, the mayor of highland park, joel williams, the mayor of university park, richard davis, and the former mayor of dallas, tom lepperd. i want to thank you for being here for this wonderful occasion and i would like those in the audience to once again acknowledge the presence of our global, national and local leaders. thank you very much.

[applause] ♪

♪

♪ [applause] >> please welcome the chairman of the george w. bush foundation board of directors, donald l. evans accompanied by the archivist of the united states, david fairio. >> i'm pleased to be joined by the honorable david fairio, archivist of the united states. on behalf of the george w. bush foundation, it is my honor to present to you and to the american people the key to the george w. bush presidential library and museum.

[applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, mrs. laura bush. [cheers and applause] >> welcome, everyone. welcome to all of our friends and family who've joined us today. be seated. welcome to all of our friends and family who've joined us today from around the country and around the world. thank you all for coming. and a special welcome to president obama and michelle, to president clinton and secretary clinton, to president carter and rosalynn and finally, we're

thrilled to have our father and mother, president george h.w. bush and barbara bush. [cheers and applause] i know for the presidential families that nothing says an exciting get-together more than an invitation to come and see millions of documents from someone else's time in office so thank you all very much for coming. a warm welcome to the former heads of state who have joined us, the diplomatic corps, the members of the united states congress and our armed forces, and we're especially happy to see the familiar faces of so many of the bush-cheney administration. in the united states, the presidency is not just about one person. the presidency is about al the people that join with that president in years of service to

our remarkable nation. they're the people who never fly on air force one but who put in countless late nights and earlier mornings, who spend less time with their family and friends and more time hard at work caring for our country. the presidency is about the men and women of our military who serve every president and who make the ultimate sacrifice to protect us and keep us safe. the stones in the walls behind us represent your years of service. this building is here because of your service and for that, george and i thank you from the bottom of our hearts. [applause] a presidential library is not just about one president. each library is about our nation and the world during that time.

the george w. bush presidential center reflects george's role as the first president of the 21st century. like our new era, the building and its grounds are designed to be forward-looking and they're green and sustainable. they celebrate the native environment of our home state of texas. the archives housed here are completely digital and the entire bush center is designed to present the past and engage the future. we welcome scholars and students and the community at large to gather here for generations to come. the center is designed to be human in scale because, like the white house, presidential libraries belong to all americans. the people across our nation were the ones who inspired us

every day. here we remember the heartbreak and the heroism of september 11 and the bravery of those who answered the call to defend our country. remember who came to the gulf coast following hurricane katrina. we remember all of the people who step forward to help others, whether to teach a child to read or to feed a hungry family. throughout the center, i'm reminded of my husband. i remember him standing near the rubble of the world trade center. his arm around the shoulders of a retired firefighter who grabbed his old gear to go search for the missing. i remember george's standing alone on the pitchers's mound at yankee stadium, repairing to throw out the first pitch in new york at the 2001 world series.

during that long season of heartbreak and healing. i remember his quite visits with the families of the fallen, sharing their stories and their tears. i remember how steadfast and steady he was for eight years. since we have been home, i have added new memories. up ae seen george lifting brush to refurbish a health clinic. i have seen him on a bike ride with a veteran. he helped push an army major who is peddling only on one leg. whenorge is a man who someone needs a hand offers them arms. this spirit and hope is forever captured in this beautiful building. this will always be a place

that welcomes each visitor with open arms. thank you all and welcome. [applause] ♪

♪ [plaing " [playing "america the beautiful"]

sea ♪ sea to shining beautiful for pilgrim feet stresstern impassioned a thoroughfare of freedom beat

america, america his grace on me ♪ thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea ♪ ♪ america [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, president jimmy carter. [applause] >> it is a great honor for me to be here today. every might smell my favorite cartoon in a new yorker magazine. this old boy is looking up at his father. he says, daddy, when i go up, i want to be a former president. [laughter] us have made that gold and one is still working on it. i will be very brief and limiting my comments just to the things that i know personally. in 2000 there was a disputed election for several weeks. when president bush became

president, they had the inauguration in positive -- in washington. two emma cracks volunteering on a platform -- i was one of the two democrats volunteering on the platform. he said, if there is anything i can do for you, let me know. that was a mistake he made. [laughter] the worst problem now is the war going on between north and south sudan. aliens of people are being killed. i would like -- millions of people are being killed. i would like you to help us get a peace agreement. in a weak moment, he said, i will do it. i said you would have to talk to the security advisor. he said, he give me a few weeks. president bush kept his promise.

january 2005, there was a peace treaty between north and south sudan that ended a war that has been going on for 21 years. george w. bush is responsible for that. [applause] that was the first of his great contributions to the countries in africa. it has been mentioned briefly here. from the time he went to office -- hethe time he left, helped with development assistance. he established a program.

i will let you figure out the percentage on that. that can helpam women with cervical and breast cancer in africa. that is something that is dear to my heart. it means a lot to millions of people in africa. mr. president, i have admiration and gratitude for you on the great contributions you have made to people on earth. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, president george h w bush. [applause]

>> thank you. what a beautiful day in dallas. a great pleasure to be here. , it isr our oldest son very special for barbara and me. andk you all for coming those who have made this marvelous museum possible. we are glad to be here. god bless america and thank you very much. [applause] too long? [laughter] [cheers and applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, president bill clinton. [applause] thank you, president bush and mrs. bush, president obama and mrs. obama, president carter and mrs. carter. all of the representatives here and the other reviews presidents -- and the other previous residence. i told president obama that this thethe latest example of

eternal struggle of former presidents to rewrite history. [laughter] i want to take my hat off to president bush for the fusible -- beautiful library. the exhibits are great. it is inspiring. on theatulate him reading for the library. i want to say, mr. president, once again you have got the better of me and in the last few weeks. as reading, but it was open for a few years before we could afford to achieve it. you have also beaten me to be a grandfather. [laughter] i congratulate you and laura for

it. [applause] withing with my work president george h w bush on the tsunami and the aftermath people began to joke that i was becoming close with the bush family. i was becoming the black sheep son. my mother told me not to talk for too long. i will not let you down. [laughter] there is one other connection that i have is largely unknown. juste bush would call me to talk politics. a chill went up and down my spine when laura said, all of the records were digitized. [laughter]

dear god i hope there is no records of those conversations in this vast and beautiful building. i want to say as president carter did, i was impressed with president bush inviting us to make different decisions on the decisions he was facing. i want to talk about a couple of other things that are beyond controversy. i want to thank president bush papbar.ing andrked all over africa building -- for passing pepfar.

i worked all over africa. many are alive because of it. i want to thank president obama for continuing it and increasing it. to you and laura for it. tonk you for your efforts reform our immigration system and keep our nation a nation of immigrants. i hope congress will follow president obama's efforts to follow the example you has said. thank you for that. thank you for the work we did together in the aftermath of haiti. we have closed our fund. we helped a lot to people's park businesses that are now thriving. we gave the country the first mortgages amid ever had.

thank you for that, mr. president. [applause] shouldn't say this, but i will anyway. your mother showed me some of your landscapes. i thought they were great. really great. i sousa considered calling you and asking if you could do -- seriously considered conduit asking if you could do a or trip -- portrait. no sketches are wonderful, but -- -- those sketches are wonderful, but -- [laughter] i like president bush. i like it when we have disagreements. he is disarmingly direct. i went on about the german

healthcare system. he said, i don't know a thing about the german healthcare system. i think he probably won the argument. [laughter] we are here to celebrate a country that we all love. the bay in difference is an important part of every free debate in difference is an important part of every free city. he invites us to make different ones if we choose. he has honored that deep .merican tradition or all of these things as an american citizen, i'm very grateful. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. [applause]

thank you. thank you. please be seated. ,r. president and mrs. bush president clinton and now former secretary clinton, president ,eorge h. w. bush and mrs. bush resident carter -- president carter, and all distinguished guest, michelle and i are honored to be here on this historic occasion. this is a texas sized party. that is worthy of what we are here to do today, to honor the life and legacy of the 43rd president of the united states, george w. bush. all of the living former presidents are together, it is also a special day for our democracy. 's have been called the world

most exclusive club. we do have a pretty nice clubhouse. the truth is, it is more like a support group. the last time we all got together was before i took office. i needed that. as each of these leaders will tell you, no matter how much you think you're ready to assume the office of president, it is impossible to truly understand until it is yours. until you're sitting at that desk. that is why every president gains better appreciation for all those who served before him, from leaders from both parties were taken on the momentous challenge to solve the enormous weight of the nation on their shoulders. that appreciation extends to president bush. the first thing i found in that desk the day i took office was a

letter from george, it demonstrated his compassion and his generosity. he knew i would come to learn what he had learned, that being resident was a humbling job. there were moments where you make mistakes. there are times in which you wish you could turn back the clock. that we love this country. we do our best. in the past, president bush has said it is impossible to pass his presidency while he is still alive. maybe this is premature him up but even now there are certain things we know for sure. brought up by two loving parents. eyes andd, my daddies

my mother's mouth. the young boy who came home and his mothersented with a dinosaur tailbone he had smuggled in his pocket. [laughter] we know about the young man who met the love of his life at a dinner party ditching his plans to go to bed early and instead talking with the brilliant and charming woman late into the night. we know about the father who raised two remarkable and ,aring and beautiful daughters even after they try to discourage him from running for president. they said, dad, you are not as cool as you think you are. mr. president, i can relate. [laughter] now we see president bush the grandfather beginning to spoil his brand-new granddaughter.

.e know president bush the man what president clinton said is true. to know the man is to like the man. he is comfortable in his own skin. .ou know -- he knows who he is he takes his job seriously, but he did not take himself too seriously. we also know something about george bush the leader. as he walked through this library, we are reminded of incredible strength and resolve that came through that bullhorn as he stood amid the ruins at ground zero. promising to deliver justice to those who sought to destroy our way of life. remember the compassion he showed by leading the global fight against hiv/aids and malaria. helping to save millions of lives and reminding people in

the four corners of the globe that america cares. we are here to help. we remember his commitment to reaching across the aisle to unlikely allies like 10 kennedy -- ten kennedy. child andhelp every not just him. we need to repair our broken immigration system. we should do this together. speaking of our history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. immigration reform has taken a bit longer than we expected. i'm hopeful that this year with the help of speaker boehner and some of the senators and members of congress who are here today that we bring it home for

families and the economy in our security and for this incredible country that we love. inwe do that, it will be large part thanks to the hard work of george w. bush. [applause] , the president there is no greater burden than serving as commander in chief. as president bush himself has said, america must and will keep its word to the men and women who have given us so much. even as we may disagree on some matters of form policy, we share a profound respect and reverence with the men and women of our military and their families. we are united in our determination to comfort the families of the fallen and to care for those who wear the uniform of the united states. [applause]

on the flight back from russia after negotiating at the height of the cold war, president kennedy's secretary had a small slip of paper in which it said -- i know there is a god. i see a storm coming. play for me, i believe i am ready. knowing can be completely ready -- no one cane be completely ready for this office, but america needs a leader to take on problems head on so they can do what they believe is right. that is what leade with om i have shared this title have all done. that is what george w. bush chose to do.

mr. president, for your service and courage and sense of humor and most of all for your love of .ountry, thank you from all the citizens of the u.s., god bless you and god bless the united states. [applause] ♪

♪ ♪

glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪glory, glory, hallelujah

♪ glory, glory, hallelujah glory, glory hallelujah. ♪lory, glory, hallelujah.

♪ christ was born across the sea ♪ ♪ glory, glory, hallelujah glory, glory hallelujah. glory, glory, hallelujah.

our god is marching on. glory, glory, hallelujah. glory, glory, hallelujah. glory, glory hallelujah. our god is marching on.♪ [applause] >> i believe one develops a set of principles through face.

-- throughfaith.-- throught faith. how you were raised. i had a sent of principles. by the time i became president, i was willing to defend those principles. i wanted to make sure the economy was strong. we needed to bolster on military in order to maintain the peace. we could achieve a more peaceful world through a strong america. war came to our shores on 9/11. i had a lot of emotions. mostly i was determined. determined to protect america.

any commander and chief ought to create a bond with the military. the toughest decision is to send men and women into harm's way. >> of course one of the things i'm interested in him is -- one of the things i'm interested in is literacy. many out there if chance confronted me after 9/11. -- many other options confronted me after 9/11. one of them was women's rights. when i made the presidential radio address talking about the brutal treatment of women by the taliban, i started getting responses from women everywhere across our country. >> our guiding principles was to whom much is given, what much is required. i believe we have an obligation to help human suffering where we possibly can. life is service until the end. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, president george w. bush. [applause] >> thank you, please be seated. oh happy days. i want to thank you all for coming. laura and i are thrilled to have so many friends. a lot of friends. there was a time in my life when i wasn't likely to be found at a library, much less found one. the beautiful building has my name above the door, but it belongs to you. it honors a cause we serve and the country we share. for eight years, you gave me the honor of serving as your president.

today i am proud to dedicate to this center to the american people. [applause] i am very grateful the president to president obama for making this trip. [applause] unlike the other presidents, he has actually got a job. [laughter] president, thank you for your kind words and for leading the nation we all love. [applause] i appreciate my fellow members of the former presidents club. 42, 41, and 39. i want to thank you for your kind words and the example you set. [applause] alexander hamilton once worried

about ex-presidents wondering among the people like discontented ghosts. i think we seem pretty happy. one reason is that we have wonderful first ladies at our side. [applause] mother, laura, you know how i feel. world leaders with whom i've had the pleasure to serve, you are good friends and i am honored to have you here in the promised land. i want to welcome the members of congress. mr. speaker, i appreciate you coming. i know you all will be happy to hear that this speech is a lot shorter than the state of the union. [laughter] i thank the governors, and state and local officials who have joined us.

i welcome members of my cabinet, especially vice president dick cheney. [applause] from the day i asked him to run with me, he served with loyalty, principal, and strength. i'm proud to call you friend. [applause] history is going to show that i served with great people. a talented, dedicated, intelligent team of men and women who love our nation as much as i do. i want to thank the people who have made this project a success. president gerald turner runs a fantastic university. [applause] a university with active trustees, dedicated faculty, and a student body that is also in -- that is awesome.

[cheers and applause] [laughter] i want to thank the professionals at the national archives and records administration who have taken on a major task. i am confident you will all handle it. i appreciate the architects, landscapers, and designers especially bob. as well of all the workers who built this facility that will stand the test of time. i think the fantastic team at the george w. bush a center. -- i thank the fantastic team at the george w. bush a center. much to the delight of the folks who work on this project, we

have raised enough money to pay our bills. [applause] we have over 300,000 contributors from all 50 states, and laura and i thank you from the bottom of our hearts. [applause] this is the first time in the american history that parents have seen their son's presidential library. at parma i promise to keep mine clean. [laughter] dad taught me how to be a president. he showed me how to be a man. 41, it is also the you are here today.

-- it is awesome you are here today. [applause] i welcome my dear brothers and sister, as well as in-laws, cousins, nieces, all of you for joining us. our family has meant more to me than anything. i thank you for making it so. not so long ago, this campus was home to the beautiful west texan named laura welch. when she earned her degree in library science, i'm not sure this day is exactly what she had in mind. [laughter] she has been a source of strength and support ever since we met in the backyard in midland, texas. one of the joys of the presidency was watching laura serve as first lady. the american people rightly love her and so do i.

she will be an excellent grandmother. it was a joy. i am really happy that her mother and father, jenna and henry, could make it here today. thank you all for coming. if you don't have anything to do, to and into the today show. today show. the jen is a correspondent. continuing the warm relations the bush family has with the press. [laughter] [applause] today marks a major milestone in a journey that began 20 years ago when i announced my campaign for governor of texas. some of you were there that day. a lot of you were there that

day. i picture you looking a little younger. you probably picture me as a little less gray hair. in politics, you learn who your real friends are. our friends have stood with us every step of the way. today is the day to give you a proper thanks. democracy, the purpose of public office, is not to the fill -- fulfill personal ambition. elected officials must serve a cause greater than themselves to -- themselves. the political winds blow left and right. polls rise and fall. supporters come and go. but in the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold. my deepest conviction, the guiding principle of the administration, is that the united states of america must strive to expand the reach of freedom. [applause]

i believe that freedom is a gift from god. the hope of everyone. freedom secured the promise of civil rights. freedom sustained dissonance bound by chains. levers huddled and underground -- believers huddled in underground services. voters who risk their lives to cast their ballots. freedom unleashes creativity, rewards innovation, and replaces poverty with prosperity. ultimately, freedom lights a path to peace. freedom brings responsibility. independent from the state does not mean isolation from each other. a free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors, and the strong protect the weak, and

public policy promotes private compassion. i try to act on these principles every day. it was not always easy, and it was not always popular. one of the benefits of freedom is that people can disagree. i created plenty of opportunities to exercise that right. [laughter] when future generations come to this library and study this administration, they're going to find out that we stay true to our convictions. [applause] that we expanded freedom at home by raising standards in schools and lowering taxes for everybody. [applause] that we liberated nations from dictatorship and free people from aids. when our freedom came under attack, we made the tough decisions required to keep the american people safe. [applause] the same principles define the

mission of the presidential center. i am retired from politics, happily so. but not from public service. we will use our influence to help more children start life with the quality education, to help americans find jobs, but more countries overcome poverty and disease, to appeal -- to help people live in freedom. we will work to empower women around the world to transfer him the countries -- to transform their country. stand behind the women and men who defend our flag him and our freedoms here at home. ultimately the success of a nation depends on the character of its citizens. as president, i had the privilege to see that up close i saw in the first responders who

charge up the stairs into the flames to save peoples's lives from burning towers. i saw it in the virginia tech professor who barricaded his classroom with his body until the students escape to safety. i saw it in the people in new orleans who may boast to rescue their neighbors from floods. servicemembers who keep our nation safe. franklin roosevelt described the dedication of a library as an act of faith. i dedicate this as an unshakable faith in our country. as brave and is no was the united states. what ever challenges come before us, i will always believe our natis